Keep Very Quiet And Cling To My Mouth
by abc-mno
Summary: Multi-Couple. Set in the future. A Zombie Apocalypse Story.
1. Part One

_"Hell is empty and all the devils are here."_

.

.

.

.

:;:;

They don't sing for pleasure anymore. They haven't done since the corridors had run riot.

Berry used to rock back and forth with stray lyrics foaming her mouth until the trembling squeak in the corner became so unbearable they had to ask her to stop. The piano was destroyed when one of them had gotten in and Puck had battered everything in his way just to stop the commotion. Mr. Schue had tried a run for the office, (their thirteenth attempt for a working phone; their cells had gone to shit months ago) and never come back. He'd left the door open and Kurt kept it ajar, sure he wasn't gone for good.

Silence has become another survivor in all of this, and Santana almost values the sound of screaming. Sometimes she presses her ear against the bricks barricading them in the choir room and listens out for the smashing of a classroom, the clanging of the lockers. They'd all scattered from the school a long time ago, but Santana knows they hide beneath the tables, wait behind the cubicle doors.

;:;:

Sam stumbles through the threshold on a particularly quiet day (Santana's fingers are plaiting Quinn's hair, strands attacking her filed nails), with a baseball bat covered in blood and Becky Jackson's glasses smashed in his fingers. Santana briefly remembers who she is but Brittany seems devastated at it.

"She just came at me." Sam says, shaking his head and rubbing his palms over his eyes. They're red raw and rusty. The glasses tumble to the floor and no one makes an attempt to save them; the wire is twisted and stained. Mike's already wiping the bat clean; it'll be needed for their evening trek for food. "Don't let me become one of them." Sam sniffs, walking over to an isolated chair and collapsing down. "If I ever come back with a bite…" He trails off.

Santana remembers Karofsky banging on the glass in the door, his fists bleeding and lip cut up. Tina had let him in but the bite was clear on his left arm and he'd tried for a good munch of her leg before Puck had rushed in with a sharp chair leg and an angry kick. It was a year back now, but they still have to be checked whenever they enter the room again.

"I swear, don't even try and save me." Sam's still saying and Santana got bored of it a long time ago. They've all made the statement, all wrote the will. His pathetic impersonations stopped after the first three weeks of realizing what they'd locked themselves away from. In reminiscence Santana actually thinks she preferred listening to them than the defeated speeches Sam likes to list off whenever he returns from a patrol. "Just kill me."

Mercedes lets out a cry at it, flings her palm to her mouth immediately and tries her best to hide the tears spilling in her eyes. Santana knows they're fucking. She'd almost pummeled them both on her round when she'd spied movement in the math room down the hall. There would have been a time, back when Sue Sylvester was the meanest monster to roam the corridors, when Sam and Mercedes' secret sexy time would have been the front page of the Mckreaker. But now the rampaging disease killing half the world is surpassing their latest scandal.

The school was massacred almost a whole year ago now; it's sometimes nice to snoop around the draws in an empty classroom to find an old issue of the William McKinley High School newspaper. It makes Santana smile when she sees an article with more spelling mistakes than a three-year-old writing a birthday card, Brittany's name hanging at the bottom of an imprudent quote from Principle Figgins.

;:;:

The first time she killed someone it was with a gun Puck had stolen from the local police. They were breaking into a supermarket down the road from the school and the creature had come out of nowhere. Zizes was too busy smashing the glass in and Puck was practicing rolling the baseball bat around in his fist and swinging it at the bolted door. Everyone had fled when Lima was announced as one of the breached City's. Santana and the rest of the clan were still locked away in the choir room; they missed any chance of escape before it all got barricaded off.

Santana had held the gun up and shot two bullets out before the wild scattering feet could come any closer, (they all knew the effects a simple bite could have). The blood seemed to spray out from the opened holes and Puck immediately took over, running and shouting and swinging his bat everywhere. The creatures had taken away his mom and he liked to avenge her every time an infected got close, he charged them all for it. He couldn't even blame Finn for pushing her out of the Puckerman's top floor, her teeth had turned sharp and her eyes were already looking at flesh with hungry nostrils.

They'd raided the store afterward. Filled trolleys with food and drink and knives. Santana had gone along the isles picking out presents for each of the lonely souls waiting back at McKinley High. Looked over posters of performers Berry had deemed fabulous, checked the Disney section for a book Brittany might not have flicked through yet. Puck dedicated a whole basket to aerosols and air fresheners. The vile stench of blood and rotting flesh loved creeping through the cracks in the doors.

The next morning, Santana had forgotten all about the creature that had crawled toward her. She'd forgotten the wail that sounded too human to be alien and the blood that looked so much darker than the kind that dripped from Santana's arm after a decidedly dangerous patrol. Killing the infected just became habit, a disgusting essential in her life.

:;:;

Freedom. Safety. A magic cure that could turn the world on it's head and back, to shake all the bad from infecting the whole nation. To make everyone normal again and set life on the course it was always meant to take; not this disaster road that some odd scientist accidentally stumbled across. It's what Kurt had told them all to wish upon after two days in the choir room and constant screams resonating from the cracks left in the bricks.

Santana didn't close her eyes to whisper her wish upon the stars. Quinn had held her palms together, as if a prayer was any more useful ever since every living creature had turned their backs on humanity. (God left her thoughts exactly fifty-four days into the attack. Quinn and Sam stopped simultaneously, the day Mr. Schue came back to haunt them. Rachel still rocks in the corner with her lips miming something resembling a prayer.)

There's nothing out there to save them, Santana learnt it the hard way.

:;:;

Puck had told them, five months into the attack when they were still hopeful and wishful and completely fucking naive about the whole situation. He'd stood at the front of the classroom a week after Mr. Schue had come back as an infected, (Santana had been the only one with the guts to kill off their favorite teacher; her and Mike had dragged the body out of the school premises as soon as his blood had spilled onto Rachel's sweater and she'd turned hysterical), Puck had referred back to his obsession with Zombie console games and told them everyone ends up a monster eventually.

Santana hadn't been sure what he meant, not when they all still thought Lima was too precious for the government just to pass off as a dead City and sanction an immediate barrier, (no one in, no one out). But she gets it now; she understands what Puck was trying to tell them. Because killing monsters until there's only them left is surely making them monsters too. Shooting bullets like she used to spray insults, swinging the bat more times than she's ever been laid; it's hard to tell what makes her human at all.

:;:;

Santana comes back with a bloodied hand, a slash down her neck and several brewing bruises camped out on her arm. It's not even surprising Zizes comes back better off, she had the damned bat and Santana had nothing. As soon as they're through the choir room doors, the others are on them and Santana can hear Berry crying again with her dads' names spluttering from her lips. Mike pulls at Santana's clothes, scanning every inch of skin in the routine check.

"How many were out there?" Puck asks, doing the same to Zizes' body and avoiding her annoying kicks. It has to be done. Santana can see behind Puck as Quinn gets the water ready and throws sponges into the buckets.

Santana shrugs, winces as Mike lifts up her top and accidentally grazes a cut she acquired last week. "Five?" Santana says, shaking her head and looking back at Zizes for unanswered reassurance. "Six? I don't know. But we only managed to get three of them, we ran after Zizes killed the third." (It's not even their worst patrol of the week; Quinn and Mercedes came back claiming there'd been nine of them.)

"It's getting worse." Artie says from the corner of the room and they all nod their heads like those fucking toy dogs her mom used to keep at the front of her car. Santana pulls away from Mike once she's given the all clear and goes straight over to Brittany with the bucket. "They can smell our blood." Artie adds and Santana rolls her eyes because she knows it's already been said.

Finn's rapping up some unneeded truths about the situation and Santana can see from the corner of her eye as Tina starts having some weird panic attack for the second time that week. Mike's shaking his head at something she's saying and rubbing at her cheek; they're the only couple that's stayed together through all of this. Santana doesn't even envy them.

"You shouldn't fight with your fists, Santana." Brittany says, sponging her hand and rubbing viciously at her knuckles. Santana rolls her eyes before she can even think of a suitable response. "You know that touching them is dangerous. What if you punched their mouth? You'd probably start scabbing like them and-"

"Ugh, you know what, Britt?" Santana tries to pull away but Brittany's grip is too strong. She's always been so much stronger than any other girl Santana's ever met. Brittany doesn't even respond or ask what the punch line to Santana's complaint is, just carries on scrubbing at her skin. "I've just fucking killed two of those Frankenstein-Underpants creations whilst you've been cooped up here telling Cripples and Nipples ghost stories. So don't start on me."

Brittany huffs, pulling Santana to the side so she can wipe the mess from down her arm. Santana doesn't even know if half the blood she's drenched in is her own, it makes her heave into Brittany's lap.

;:;:

Most of the others have gone out to the supermarket and taken all the security with them, (they'd ran out of toilet role three days ago when Artie had came up with the inept idea to use toilet paper to wipe away the blood), and Rachel shudders every time there's a whisper of a noise, a hint of sound. Puck had put Mike in charge whilst they skipped off because Berry's incompetent at ordering anything when an infected gets close and Artie's in a fucking wheelchair and damned for life. And Sam didn't want to leave a girl in charge with no proper masculine ammunition to defend. Santana had pulled a fit at the complete misjudged sexism; but they still left Mike and a tennis racket.

The two boys are at the front talking about some shitty porn stars and what they'd look like now they're probably zombiefied. Santana's left with sitting on her own and twiddling her thumbs or talking to Berry and she knows what she'd rather do, but Rachel keeps sending her these irritating looks that suggest Santana should want to do the opposite.

She kicks the chair next to Berry so it hits the side of her thighs, slouching down on it seconds later and pushing the legs further away. "Quit ogling me, Dwarf." She spits, making a point to furrow her brows and squint her eyes. "You're making me forget how to think and it's annoying."

Rachel just shrugs in response. Santana's thought about locking Berry out of the choir room; watching her get ripped apart by the infected creatures or just bitten to turn uglier than she already is. But it's a horrible thought and she got a load of shit the first time she used it as an insult to slap at Zizes on one of her more cranky days.

Berry has the worst mood swings though; she shows too much emotion and opens her mouth to spill her worries to anyone in a close enough radar. She has good days and bad days; and even in her most agonizing moods, Santana wouldn't wish the horrors of the outside world on her.

"They've been gone for too long, haven't they?" Rachel says, looking up at the clock above Mike and Artie's heads. It stopped working months ago and batteries are the least of their worries when they're scanning moldy isles. Santana doesn't reply because she hardly wants to admit she's been counting the minutes. "Almost half the day now." Rachel's nails are in her mouth again, gnawing at what's left along her fingers. "Do you think they've gotten into trouble?"

Santana bites at her lip, a habit she gained four weeks into the torment and fear of how long a school second-hand door could last, (she'd never bite her nails the way Berry does; she keeps sane by constantly dragging a nail file over and along her cuticles), and stares straight at Berry with a forced smile. She doesn't know if she's become nicer through all of this, or just more tolerant. "There's always trouble, Berry."

Rachel blinks and nods and turns back to stare at the door. Rachel and Artie are the only two that haven't ventured out of the school yet; Puck won't even allow Artie outside the choir room because he's in a wheelchair and he'd drag them down more than he'd fight the others off. Finn pulls a tantrum every time Rachel volunteers for a patrol and she just finds it chivalrous and endearing. Santana suspects he's fucking both Rachel and Quinn; suspects they both know he's doing it anyway. Everything went to shit a long time ago and no one has enough energy to care about flimsy love triangles. They all just stopped trying.

They've been gone too long and she knew it was a bad idea when Puck suggested they all go. He thinks it's the only way to ensure a safe trip. The numbers of infected are rising and something keeps pulling them to the school. She knows it's because all the survivors are being demolished as they breathe or turned into another member of their disjointed army. Santana knows it's all coming back to them because they're the only people left alive with warm blood and a steady heartbeat. It'll all come to an end soon.

:;:;

The first lot get back when the night is blanketed in darkness, (there haven't been stars for weeks). Sam wobbles through with Mercedes hanging off his right arm and her knee looks close to falling right on the floor as a dead limb. Rachel jumps right out of the seat screaming songs of worry and anger, asking questions neither of them look ready to answer. Mike pulls Mercedes to a chair and orders Santana and Berry to go get a table from the classroom adjacent.

Santana takes one look at Mercedes' dripping leg and runs straight out to the corridor, dragging Rachel's arm along with her, returning back seconds later with metal scraping along the floor and making horrible black marks across the plastic tiles. Rachel goes to check over Sam for bites whilst Mike and Santana lift Mercedes onto the table to pull her ripped pants from her legs.

"What happened?" Artie says, looking around like a hopeless fish on wheels. Sam's panting over the silence and Mercedes is crying through her bloody palms. "Where are the others?" He's still asking and although Santana wants to know the answers too, she has a bleeding girl in front of her and Sam's knuckles seem to have fallen apart.

Santana skipped health class; (her and Brittany used to make out in the cubicles every Thursday morning instead. They'd gotten that far with no pregnancies or major STD's, so they figured it was useless anyway). So now she's stumped on how to repair Mercedes' shattered kneecap, and there's been no trolleys, baskets or bags arriving with the bandages they'd all been sent out to get.

Rachel calls the all clear for Sam and Mike doesn't even hesitate to push Mercedes' top right up to finish the routine. They all forgot about dignity as soon as they'd been battered and bruised and stripped to be bandaged.

"They came out of nowhere." Sam sniffs, limping over to stand by Mercedes, yelping against the table as Mike wraps some extra clothes around the wound. (Quinn and Tina had brought them back three weeks ago and thrown them into the corner.) Santana can't remember the last time she changed her clothes, and she doesn't even feel embarrassed at the thought. "Just fucking flew at us and we all had to separate."

"Where's Tina?" Mike asks, shaking his head afterward and waving it away. Santana has the urge to run out of the building to find the others herself. Brittany's probably cowering in a corner somewhere, waiting for a hero to come and save her. She never understood that Superman wasn't real. "Do you know where any of the others are?"

Sam shakes his head, rubbing at his eyes and reaching a hand to wipe some blood drying against Mercedes' cheek. "I thought they'd come back here." He says, voice defeated and annoyed. "I saw Puck and Zizes heading in this direction so I just thought…" Sam trails off and then looks back at the others with guilty eyes. "She was bleeding so bad I just had to get her to safety, you know? One of them went crazy at her and nearly got a bite-"

"She's bitten?" Rachel cries, eyes wide and face absolutely horrified. Santana would laugh at the pathetic expression if it wasn't so serious.

"No." Mike shakes his head, ties a big knot in the fabric over Mercedes' knee. And it looks so painful Santana's amazed she hasn't passed out yet. "No, I checked her. Bite-free." Mike gestures for the water and Berry almost sprints on the spot to get it, throwing half the bucket's contents on the floor. He immediately starts wiping off the blood and mud covering Mercedes' skin so her other cuts and slices and bruises can come to light. Santana reaches for more water to do the same to Sam.

Artie wheels himself up and down the room, trying to peek out the window and through the cracks the infected had kicked through the door. Rachel goes back to sitting on the chair, gobbling her nails and rocking back and forth. Santana knows she's probably pressing too hard against Sam's skin, can hear his hisses, but she's never been a patient person.

:;:;

Finn staggers in next, a lone soul screaming out at the splintered wood embedded in his right arm. It looks painful but the sun is coming up and the others aren't back so Santana doesn't pay him any attention. Mercedes is still crying on the table with Sam whispering promises none of them can swear to keep and blood seems to have drowned the whole floor.

Rachel is checking Finn for bites and kissing his scaly skin. It all looks unnatural and practiced. His cuts don't even come close to matching Mercedes' but his eyes water all the same. Santana eventually becomes furious she was sentenced to stay in the choir room chained along with the other people that could be out there helping. She knows she couldn't have stopped this; but wishful thinking can get her so far.

Mike's staring out of the window, anxiously anticipating Tina's return. (He can play it up like he wants the others to come back safe, but they all know there's only one person on his mind.) Whilst Artie is just spluttering questions around the room and Santana has to clench her hands not to pummel a chair in his direction.

:;:;

By early morning, Santana's stolen the gun Finn brought back and is loading it over and over, counting the bullets one by one and holding her arm out as if to shoot. She's ready to go waltzing out destroying everything in her path. She gets as far as the door until Sam wrestles her to the ground screaming about not losing another one. Rachel ends up sitting on her lap and slapping her every time she tries to move. The only reason Santana allows this pathetic punishment is because half the room is crying about a disaster that they're still all enduring.

:;:;

The door flies open and Santana's on her feet in a blink, Rachel tumbles and slides somewhere off to the corner of the room, and she's reached for the gun again, flexing her fingers against the trigger. It's Kurt, though, pulling along two blonds on either side of him. They all look bruised and bloody and distraught, but they're alive and Santana throws the gun to the ground and almost falls to the floor with it.

Mike's stressing out, fingers running through his hair as he pulls Quinn along to the side to check her for bites. And Santana feels his pain, she has both her people back now so Santana can relax, but she understands his torment won't be over until Tina makes her way back. Rachel's on Kurt, telling him the updates of the failed shopping trip, like he hasn't just lived through it, so Santana beckons Brittany over.

It's a relief when she finally wipes moist blood stinging beneath Brittany's eye. A strong emotion she can't even find the words to explain, a feeling she didn't even realize was eating at her until Brittany's feet had crossed the threshold from hell to Santana. And even though she just wants to pull Brittany into a never ending hug, she knows she has to follow procedure, check for bites along the soft skin, else Sam will take another chance to channel all his frustration out on her clumsy awareness for danger.

"I think I punched a lamppost, San." Brittany whispers, leaning forward and backwards. It's either from lack of sleep or loss of blood and Santana needs it to be the former. Brittany's voice is soft, quiet and drawn out, wavy and confused. It sounds all together too wrong. "I think I tried to get one of them, but had a fight with a lamppost instead. I'm not sure because the sky had gone all dark, but it made this horrible ringing noise and my fingers felt like they were falling off."

Santana nearly collapses with relief when she's checked all over Brittany's body and found no bites, no teeth implants or dangerous contact with any of the infected. It's the best news all night and she can't help but let a small smile pass her lips when Berry and Mike shout the all clear, mimicking her own words and breathing out a sigh of their own.

"It's fine, Britt." Santana smiles, leans forward and brushes her fingers against Brittany's tired eyelids. "You're safe now, it's all fine now, okay?" She's already reaching for a bucket, sponging away any of the blood drying against the bruises pressed to her skin. Santana can hear Kurt gasping over Mercedes, Quinn crying about the monsters and trying to reassure Mike. But Santana concentrates on putting Brittany right first, cleaning her up and making sure there's nothing terribly wrong.

:;:;

Quinn has the steadiest hand but her heart is too squeamish to deal with masses of blood, so she takes one glance at Mercedes' leg and swings back around with fingers clutching her smashed lips. Kurt volunteers, almost pleads to help Mercedes, but they all know that when he gets nervous he starts to tap his foot constantly against the floor in a horrid rhythm, it jolts his whole body and the stitches wouldn't even be close to the cuts. Rachel's been banned from going near the table ever since the blood dripped onto her shoes from the surface and she'd caused a massive fuss over whether Mercedes was going to die. It did nothing but panic Mercedes and she'd kicked her leg mid-scream and the tears hadn't stopped rolling since.

There's three of them still missing and Berry has somehow convinced Brittany to stare at the clock with her. (Santana had told them both to stop being ridiculous because the clock hasn't worked for as long as she can remember and haven't they ever heard that time goes on forever if they're counting?) Finn and Sam are trying to explain what exactly went on in the supermarket and Santana couldn't listen for long because it sounds like the fault lies with the damn lookouts. (None of them will whisper the names; won't blame. Santana's gathered it was Tina and Kurt by the way they tell the events and because Kurt is blinking dramatically and looking out of the window guiltily).

Mike is still pacing and Artie is humming an old song to Mercedes to calm her down and stop the fast flow of blood. He'd seen on a television program that songs calm the body and thus slow the blood; it sounds like bullshit to Santana. She has to bite down on her tongue to stop herself from screaming for him to shut the fuck up, because her fingers are itching and her eyes keep darting to the door nervously waiting for the others.

:;:;

They come in when the sun looks ugly against the moldy gray leaking into the sky. Puck has Tina draped across both arms and Zizes is sniffing and tripping and holding a large slash running down the length of her arm. They know something's wrong, and not just because the light above them flickers as if it's warning them all for the worst. And Santana gulps and stands immediately.

Mike's sprinting forward, tugging at Tina's body and Santana didn't notice the repeated apologies spurting out of Puck's mouth until now. Until she sees the jagged cut pressed against Tina's left arm. He's silenced, Puck's mouth canning shut with force and a sharp click, when Finn pulls him aside to check for bites. Quinn's turned to Zizes, already lifting her pants up to her knees and asking her to step out of them. No one even tries to go to Tina.

"What's wrong with her?" Brittany whispers, but the words shatter along the walls and everyone seems to hang onto the question. Mike leans back against the door, pulling Tina upright and brushing a finger beneath her droopy eyelids. She's not dead, and she doesn't even look like there's been much blood escaping through any cracks. But there's that one cut that Santana's seen before. There's that one cut that looks way too dangerous to be in this room.

"He was on her when we got there." Puck says, pushing Finn away as soon as he's pulled his shirt back down. Finn flies back and almost knocks himself to the floor with his clumsy feet tangling with chair legs. Mike's shaking his head against Tina's forehead, whilst she just seems to be crying silently against his lanky fingers. "I thought we stopped them." His words waver, his lips quiver. "I thought we got there in time, man. But-"

"It's a cut." Mike says, nodding to himself and Santana knows the lie runs short. She knows it hits a blank and Rachel sniffs from the far end of the corner, pressed tightly against Finn. Tina shakes her head weakly and Mike ignores it all. He ignores Kurt's horrified squeak, Brittany's questioning frown, Puck's useless apology. Santana's all too acquainted with denial. "Nothing a plaster can't fix." He smiles, shrugging into Tina's neck.

"We need to check her." Sam steps forward, hesitant to open his mouth for once in his life. His hands shake as he reaches forward. Santana wonders what he expects to carry back in his palm, she wants to slap his hand away and just let them have this. She wants to encourage the others along with Mike. Losing someone wasn't in her plan.

Mike shakes his head, moving deeper into the corner with Tina hanging loosely from his shoulder and his trembling arm wrapped around her waist. "It's nothing." He says. "It's nothing, okay? Leave it. Leave it be and get me a bandage to cover it." No one knows how to respond. No one knows how to save her or make this alright. No one knows a thing.

Santana remembers them all asking to be shot. Remembers Brittany playing around with the gun and asking why pulling a trigger against her head would guarantee her beauty forever. She remembers them all vowing to follow each others wish. She remembers thinking it unimportant anyway; they wouldn't let this happen.

"I'm sorry." Tina mutters, and her voice is so quiet they all have to lean forward. There are wet tracks along the plastic flooring and Mercedes is struggling to sit up, rocking herself as she glances at Tina and lets out a high-pitched groan. "I'm sorry I let them do it. I tried and I couldn't-"

"It's a cut." Mike shouts; they all jolt backwards with wide eyes and he bites his lip so hard blood trickles down below his chin. "It's a cut. It's a cut. So, stop." He shakes his head, looking around at everyone and then back at Tina, they're eyes meeting and four pupils instantly start pooling drops. "Everyone is being overdramatic and-"

"Stop fucking about, Mike." Sam says, and he's become bitter over time. His words have always sounded harsher in the air since the day Quinn and Sam tumbled back with memories hidden behind scarred eyelids of two blond siblings ripped apart by beasts. "It's a bite and we all know it. And if we don't do what she wants us to do, then she'll be one of them fuckers out there in a matter of hours."

It's true. It's true and the fact stings more than Santana ever imagined this situation would. They'll all merge over to the dark side eventually and Santana's slept through nightmares where she pulls the trigger against her own temple before she ever starts bulging into one of them. Their promise to Tina lingers in the air and Mike snatches it back.

"We'll stop it." He says. Mike doubts his words more than anyone; it's not possible. They tried it half a year ago when Blaine had cried aloud and cursed the bite swelling in the curve of his neck. It had been Kurt that pulled the trigger, choking on his own sick and gasping past his tears. It was out of pure love and Kurt didn't even need convincing of it afterward. There's no saving them when they hold the teeth marks of an infected.

Tina gulps, Santana watches the lump struggle to descend her throat, and she presses a delicate kiss to Mike's jaw. It's an answer in itself. "Don't let me become the things we've fought so hard to destroy." She says, sniffing on her tears and leaning against the door and further away from Mike. She looks around, pleading with any of them, pleading with the ones who hold the most courage. It's out of love; and no one would question the finger that pushed out the bullet. But it's an impossible ask; killing a friend.

"Don't let me be the enemy." Tina whispers and Santana hears the shot before she sees Tina fly backwards. Mike screams, shouts and cries out in a long heartbreaking sob. Like if he carries the note on forever then maybe the minute will freeze and never tick another second. She hears Berry collapse to the floor and Artie gasp. She hears Tina's body slump against the stained door and Mike scrambling for her limbs. She hears Brittany cry out and Quinn moan. Mercedes yelps and Zizes breathes out. Sam and Finn are silent and Puck drops the gun to the floor.

:;:;

Santana doesn't remember the first time she saw an infected.

Her mother had told her about the disease spreading world wide; about how Paris had become a war zone and how parts of America were taking Europe's advice and closing down City's with too many infected. Abandoning citizens if their fate was already doomed. Santana hadn't taken notice, (not even when Puck and Finn had laughed about the pathetic games they spent all night humping over becoming reality).

She didn't know that three weeks later she'd be locked in a classroom, sitting against the door as the handle jolted above them with every innocent student trying to make their getaway. Foreign teeth were already sinking into their skin and their eyes were already scalded yellow. It was too late for the rest of the McKinley High population scurrying about in the corridors.

Sue Sylvester was one of the first to be changed on the school premises. The corridors vibrated with intense screams and fear smoked to the ceilings faster than the Coach had ever accomplished. Glee Club had just finished and the bell was ringing out, the sound was nothing in comparison to the shouts and squeals.

People had run wild, their skin was flaky and the scabs snowed to the floor. Mr. Schuester had ordered them back from the riot, pulling half his students by the collar back into the choir room. Santana had tripped over a fleeting boy and tugged at Brittany's wrist until they were both safe and locked in the classroom with the entire New Directions.

They hadn't left the room for days after that and they still stumble back to the same safety net.

:;:;

They can't calm Mike down and none of them sleep for days. Artie ends up stitching Mercedes up, because Brittany tells everyone he's good with his hands and when Santana frowns along with everyone else, she clarifies that Artie has to use his hands to wheel himself around all the time. Brittany had told Santana two weeks ago that she'd fucked him when everyone was out on their daily patrols. Sex only seemed to matter to one pair and now they're destroyed.

Mike won't talk. They've all tried, but he sits in the corner with the pale corpse and rocks against the wall. Santana came back from the cubicles to find Mike swinging his legs in one of the classrooms down the hall; his fingers skated across the metal and stroked the curve of the trigger. Santana had backed away immediately and forced herself to believe it was all for protection.

In the same week he picks a fight with Puck, punching and slapping and kicking, getting no satisfaction as Puck stood still and just let it happen. Mike only stopped because Sam had come running in from a round circling the school and had pulled them apart. The others didn't even want to intervene. Mike's face had never looked so viscous.

:;:;

Brittany walks up to the very top of the bleachers, Santana watches as she takes the steps one at a time, looking behind her for any sign of unwanted movement with every foot. Santana wants to find it cute but it's been exactly two weeks since Tina's death and Mike has gone from shouting everyday to not talking at all, and Berry encouraged everyone to be silent too, for respect and to support Mike. Santana hates awkward silences she can't pierce a hole through, so she decided to come outside, a gun resting on her lap in case any creature lurches across the football field.

"Why do people salute?" Brittany asks as soon as she's sliding in next to her on the bench. It's a random question, but Brittany's come out with weirder words and it's a kind break from talking about strategies to kill zombies and ways to pull people from depression. "My auntie used to salute to the sky all the time."

Santana shrugs. "There's that superstitious shit. Saluting to a bird or something." Santana remembers hearing her mom complain about their neighbor's kids screaming about bad luck and all the things her mother hated. Her mom liked facts.

Brittany hums a little, a sound that means she's pretending to understand. She nods and smiles. "Oh, okay. I totally get it now." She doesn't, but Santana tries to grin at her attempt anyway. "So, like, I could salute you, then?"

"No."

"But you're a bird."

Santana shakes her head, spies movement in the parking lot a couple of miles away, behind the bleachers opposite. She reaches for the gun reflexively. "I'm not that kind of bird, Britt." She says blandly.

Brittany doesn't seem bothered by her reply, just turns more on her side and salutes her anyway, her fingers pressed tightly together. "You're my kind of bird." Brittany says, nudges her shoulder and links their pinkies in a tight hook.

:;:;

Quinn shoots one of the infected on the way back from the pharmacy. It's such a shock to her, (Quinn always ran, never killed, never shot, never hurt; she fled) that she shakes uncontrollably as she skids along the sidewalk and avoids Puck kicking stones in the middle of the road, he swings the baseball bat in circles like he's expecting them to drop out of the sky.

Santana squeezes her hand, whispers about how they aren't proper anymore; they don't have any human in them. It's why Kurt killed Blaine; it's why Puck shot Tina. They are monsters with violence, flesh and blood being the only song on repeat. It's not legitimate murder. Quinn shakes and presses her palms together anyway.

:;:;

Berry's too busy panicking and riling everyone up into a frenzy to notice. Puck's screaming at her and the rest of them are just sitting in agitated nervousness. They're all too worried about things that don't matter to notice what does. Losing people isn't in her grand plan, so Santana takes a tennis racket and leaves the choir room by herself.

When she finds Mike, his arm is cut up and he's just sliding down to the floor and shaking his head. There's a dead creature jutting on the floor in front of him, purring out for others. Mike just turns and stares at the other infected rounding the corner, (Santana recognizes him; he was the youngest lifeguard at the swimming baths, she used to flaunt herself everywhere to impress him), and Mike doesn't even make a move to stand or defend himself, and Santana worries for a split second if he's just going to let himself be destroyed right there against the lockers.

She jumps in just as the infected gets close and really starts growling. They're not human anymore, they'll never be human again and they just want to suck others into their misery. They don't even realize what they're doing. And she swings the racket just above Mike's head; he doesn't even turn to acknowledge her presence. It hits the face of the monster and blood splatters out through the holes, trickles down to her fist. She hits him again, harder this time, because he's still intent on getting a good chew of Mike's cheek and he's doing nothing to protest it. The zombie falls back down; withering on the floor and Santana kicks it right in the balls for good measure.

Mike still doesn't look up and Santana doesn't want to look down. She doesn't want to think about his complete lack of defense and fear. She doesn't want to think Mike's given up because the New Directions aren't like that; they stick together until the very end and they never give up. Mike's isn't like that.

So she slides down the lockers too, not even feeling the metal scrape her shoulders, and she nudges up close against Mike's side. They sit in silence as Santana interlocks their fingers and Mike pretends not to cry; he pretends he wasn't waiting for his end to come with the next zombie that flung a runny mouth at him. Santana pretends they can all get through this; but the lump in her throat and the knife in her stomach screams otherwise.

:;:;

Five weeks after Mr. Schue had come back and tried to kill them all in the choir room, Santana had took Brittany to their old elementary school in search of her little sister. She was forced to kill three little children with flaky skin and yellow eyes and teeth sharper than the knife she kept in her pocket. It was so much worse than killing any other infected; she was so close to just letting them chew them both up. But they weren't little children anymore, the disease had taken over them and they were so far from human it hurt.

Dead bodies flooded the school playground, the corridors slippy with blood and stray limbs waited by the classroom doors. It had looked like a massacre, like a slaughterhouse where young children went to die. They'd found Brittany's sister ripped apart in one of the worst classrooms. She was one of many.

"At least she didn't turn into a monster." Brittany had said, and then curled up onto the floor and cried. Santana had wrapped an arm around her waist and kept one firmly pressed against her gun. They'd managed to make it back to McKinley High without any scratches and with dry eyes.

:;:;

Mike shoots himself five weeks after Tina had a Bullet pelted through her head. Kurt and Quinn find him out in the parking lot and drag him in through the gravel and disarray of corpses, (beauties and beasts; humans and monsters). Mike's just another one of them now. Berry cries through the whole night and Finn gets tired of comforting her. Quinn's on her knees and Sam murmurs prayers along with her.

Mercedes and Kurt huddle in the corner, she hasn't moved since the stitches were sown through her kneecap, they use Artie's wheelchair whenever she's bursting for the toilet. Puck and Zizes leave the room; Santana used to follow them when death was still something none of them talked about. She knew that sometimes they would fuck in the sports changing rooms and other times they would go out deliberately searching for creatures to kill. Artie's knuckles are white against the rubber strangling the wheel.

"They're together now." Santana says, whispers into Brittany's ear. She's still in her reverie of shock. "Mike wanted to be with Tina, so he took the shortcut and flew himself up there. To heaven or whatever is waiting next."

Puck and Zizes come back with so much blood smothering their skin it's hard to tell where their own cuts start and finish.

:;:;

They don't have time for grief, their world comes crashing down the moment they shut the door. Santana forgets the slogans Coach Sylvester used to sing down the megaphone, she forgets that fear is bad and that winning is everything. She forgets that the hard things, (like survival; like life; like love) never come free. Never come easy or cheap.

They all forget themselves and each other and Tina and Mike's body are left alone, pushed out to make room for others. Santana knows the minute the floor starts to vibrate that they won't all make it out alive.

:;:;

Puck screams out unintelligible words the moment the first monster smashes against the door, blood dripping from his broken lips and eyes staring straight in front, daring them to run. They all knew it would come eventually, that the school was never really safe, that the monsters hid away from them, darted into lockers and sneaking behind doors. They all knew that it was a risky thing to stay together as one big blood clot in a world where blood is rationed and flesh is devoured by the second.

Sounds screech and footsteps rap against the floor and Santana can see the army clawing out into the school. They're surrounded by creatures they know how to batter, monsters they all vowed they wouldn't become and people infected by a hideous disease that destroyed everything the human race pretended to be. There are too many and the whole choir room knows it; Santana looks around and watches them all say their prayers and resign to dying.

There's no escape and Brittany's at her side and her voice is quiet against the screams. Her mouth is cold against Santana's sweaty neck. She can't let it be the end.

:;:;

Sam and Finn manage to smash the glass at the top of the room, balancing on plastic chairs and shaky hands. Puck immediately starts lifting people out, Finn first so he can catch them all on the other side, punching out the wood separating the two glass slabs. His fist it bloody and his fingers drip. Mercedes wails as her leg gets caught and the cut on her knee tears open. Sam pushes her through, shouting for Finn on the other side over the horrible gagging out in the corridors.

Santana squeezes Brittany's hand as she steps up to go, Quinn lining up behind Brittany and trying to wipe her cheek clean. It's not the end, Santana thinks. But Artie is shaking his head, waving them all on and Puck is too busy yelling for Santana to fill the backpacks with bats and knives and guns. Sam's tugging Artie up, ordering Kurt to fold the wheelchair and throw it through the window.

The wood on the door behind them cracks and a foot smashes through to the room. Mike and Tina's body lie at the front and Santana knows they're just going to have to leave them here. They don't have time to salvage a funeral or say their goodbyes.

:;:;

"We need to split up." Puck says once they're all out of the choir room and in an area Santana never remembers being at McKinley. They're surrounded by buildings, like this is a new little garden that just dropped into the middle of the school and Santana wishes she paid more attention when she was a student, wishes she looked around campus more and didn't just stay out near the bleachers or huddled up in the girls bathrooms.

Behind them, through smashed glass and foggy windows, there are hungry eyes searching for the warm blood flowing so freshly through their nostrils. Santana can hear the clatter as the door to the choir room gets kicked down and growls resonate through the walls.

Santana opens her mouth to protest, but Sam's already holding a hand out to silence her. "Yeah, and quickly. Right now we're a tasty cooked meal just waiting to be gobbled by the fuckers in there." He points a shaky finger behind him and then drags it along to point at the buildings around them. "Smallest groups possible, guys. We'll meet up afterward when we're sure we've lost them all."

Finn's already beckoning Brittany to help push along Artie and Berry's still sobbing against his shirt. Santana doesn't have a choice, she tries to swallow her resentment, because someone needs to help Artie along and Brittany is closest to him. Safety for all of them matters more than Santana getting her own way.

"Can't Britt come with us?" Quinn says, tugging on Santana's wrist. Santana's throwing out weapons to the others on who's best with what. Puck gets a baseball bat already red from blood; he likes it best when he watches the life drip out of them drop by drop. Brittany turns around, one hand clasped on Artie's handle.

"Why aren't we going together, San?" She asks, looking confused and finally letting go of Artie. Sam's already pulling Mercedes along, limping with every step. Kurt follows reluctantly after, playing with a gun Santana had pressed to his palm. "Santana?"

"Britt, we're meeting up soon." Santana says, pulling Brittany into a tight hug and pressing a knife into her back pocket where she knows Brittany will check later. She usually refuses to take any weapons but Santana can't have anything happen to her. "Tomorrow, we'll see each other." She whispers, lips soft against Brittany's ear. It'll take everything to pull away. "Tomorrow, it'll all be fine."

Berry calls her over, Artie looking behind with dented glasses and fear eating away at his face. Brittany should be hers; Santana knows. Brittany belongs to her and Santana might not be able to manage with just one of her people by her side. Quinn wouldn't understand but she stretches and itches all the same. Artie needs Brittany right now, but Santana will always have her.

"Tomorrow will come fast." Santana says, smiles. Brittany just rubs at her eyes and salutes, her fingers pressed together and hands trembling. The salute seems weak and it makes Santana's stomach drop.

It's only when Santana's jogging away from the others, (jogging away from her safety net and her very own magpie and the only thing that keeps her upright), that she realizes they never set a place to meet. She realizes Sam doesn't actually expect any of them to make it out of Lima at all, let alone the scrawny High School they seem to have chained themselves to.


	2. Part Two

:;:;

They swap weapons as soon as Quinn accidentally fires a bullet at a closed door and it gets the attention of three eager zombies. Santana has to run forward and batter them all with the racket she'd been strangling, kicking and punching and earning herself a jagged scar down her cheek already. Quinn cowers into a ball and wishes it all away and Santana knows she has to look after her best friend. Quinn might not have been the best companion to escape with, but Santana wouldn't have it any other way.

:;:;

It's been hours since they all split up and the air is getting cold and the sky is getting dark and they still haven't made it out of the school. Every classroom they enter, (shortcuts is what Quinn calls it and sends them into trouble with every directed finger), is filled with at least five of the infected and Quinn has learnt to take one, (smash it round the head like Santana had shown her on an unsuspected creature snarling in the corridors), and Santana will take the rest. Bullets soaring, fists flying and legs canting. They'll make it through together.

Quinn slumps over after she's killed her sixth zombie, hugs her legs to her chest and wipes her cheeks against her knees. Santana checks around the corner of the classroom to see if they should be expecting anymore company, and walks over to sit beside Quinn. Santana has learnt not to cry, she's held it all in for so long she knows if she ever let herself tear up she'd never stop, and then she really would be useless to everyone.

"We're never going to get out of here." Quinn says, voice wobbly and defeated. She sniffs against her pants again and sits up higher. Santana doesn't know how to answer. "There're so many of them. How did we not see this coming?"

Santana shrugs. She's asked herself this with ever plow she's taken. "Q, as far as we know, we're the only people left alive in Ohio, let alone the block. We're gonna be bringing in some attention, aren't we?" Santana looks over at Quinn and she does a little head bob, flinching at Santana's stare. "We'll get out of here soon. Our smell is all over this place and you know they can't stop. You know it's in their nature to seek us all out."

"It's all fucking useless." She whispers and she sounds so hopeless, so broken. Santana shakes her head in response, closes her eyes when Quinn turns to her and trails a finger down the cut on her cheek. It's still wet with sweat and blood and every time Santana speaks it stretches and aches. "Why are we even trying?"

Santana breathes out a laugh that doesn't sound real. Her wince betrays the offered relief and Quinn just looks pitiful at the attempt. "Fabray, you're not this." She says. "You're a fucking dragon that never stops. You're so much a survivor you went all hospitalized on that schnoz and sweated out that fat ass you lugged around for years. You're not the Caboosey that takes insults, you're the Fabray that gives them."

Quinn tries to smile; it looks painful across her lips. "So I'll insult the zombies to death?"

"We'll kill the zombiezoid fuckers together and show them what head cheerleaders really do with their fists." Santana grins, throws her free arm up in the air in an old cheer routine, fingers clasped in a tight fist and hands shaking with the fear Santana will never let people in on. Fear paralyses people, changes them into stones too heavy to be thrown into a cheer jump. Sue Sylvester shunned anyone with a quivering smile.

:;:;

One of them claws her shin as the other slashes her arms and punches her in the face. Santana manages to push three bullets into one of their shoulders but she still falls to the floor regardless. Quinn's off busy hitting another one of them, he's down on the ground with a mouth still biting thin air in the hope that Quinn will accidentally trip into a mouthful of nasty venom and a world of hunger. Santana steals herself for a moment, sends Quinn a quick glance to make sure she's not dying on the floor or bucking into a diseased ridden monster.

She elbows the girl leaning closer to her, knocks her arm off kilter and sends her flying down to her stomach where Santana pulls the trigger to the top of her head and rolls over so she's on top. The other one lurches forward, still standing and leaning in. She kicks at his legs and hears the snap of a bone, watches him struggle to hold up, his yellow eyes gawking and teeth widening. She punches his stomach as she stands and knees him over to join the rest of his army lying dead on the floor.

Quinn's kicking at the body next to her, over and over and over. It's obvious he's dead but the tears are streaming down her face and Santana doesn't even contemplate stopping her.

:;:;

Tomorrow, she thinks as she limps out the front doors of the school onto the hidden parking lot. The whole world is black and the only thing Santana is sure of is the clammy hand behind her. Quinn stepped on a blade and her foot squelches blood with every step. Some bastard zombie threw a table at Santana before trying to lean down and make supper from her nose and she's sure she has a few broken ribs along with some horrible puncture in her stomach.

Tomorrow, and everything will be all right. She tugs at the hand, pulls at the girl and groans with every step. Tomorrow she'll find them all and Brittany will come running home. There's a car set on fire and Santana tries to think back to who took the bag with the matches in, because it could be some odd sign they're all meant to read. But she comes up blank and hopes whoever started it is safe. The flame lights up the sky and spits ash through the dented doors.

Tomorrow, when the world is light again and the stars finally make a show and the barrier to the safe part of the country is that much closer. Quinn hums along to a song Berry had been singing three days ago in the Choir room. Tina's favorite, she'd said and smiled over at Mike as she'd wiped tears from her pale cheeks.

:;:;

They stumble down an empty street, just visible through the blanketed sky and endless clouds, and Santana chooses the third house on the street because it has stairs up to the front door and the window isn't smashed in like the others. She kicks the door open as Quinn keeps watch for any of the infected, and then they creep in and check every room on the lower floor before Quinn rushes to the bathroom, (she'd refused to go unless there was a porcelain tub beneath her and Santana had just rolled her eyes, because being picky is dangerous in a war).

Quinn sleeps on the sofa as Santana stays up with the bat between her knees and a gun in her lap. They'd found a jug of water and a bag of chips in the cupboard. There's little that doesn't go moldy in a whole year, and with each bite Santana's mouth becomes drier and she thinks maybe there's nothing that can last. She wonders if this is what the others are doing, if they're camping out in a stranger's house too or if they're drinking dead people's water and eating moldy food.

Maybe they're still fighting, still pulling triggers and waving bats and swinging fists. Maybe they're not safe at all.

:;:;

Quinn wakes her up with bloody hands and eyes so dark Santana pulls away. She fell asleep and she knows a blink of an eye could mean the end, so she sits up immediately and looks around the room for any sign of disturbance. Santana's cheek is ripped open again and her face is running with blood. Quinn is holding tissue paper against it and sniffing.

"We're going now, right?" She says, looks around the room and then back at Santana. She thinks, for a brief second, that Quinn means going home and a warm feeling brews in her chest. But Santana doesn't have a home anymore. She'd walked there six months ago and found it burnt down with bodies mulling around. She hadn't cried.

"Yeah." Santana nods, rubs her eyes and accidentally knocks Quinn's hand away. The tissues even look mucky and it's stained red and almost dripping. "Yeah, we'll use the toilet and be off, okay? We needs to get far away from here. Our smell will be everywhere and those monster-munch will be reeling from yesterday."

Quinn steps back and picks the bat from the floor and offers Santana a hand. "Where are we going?" She asks, but Santana doesn't think anyone knows the answer to that.

:;:;

It seems like they've been walking for the better half of the day, palms slipping and sliding against each other's fingers in an attempt to keep upright, and they've collided with no new infected beasts. Santana's starting to worry, because nothing has gone good for them so far and yet the whole day has been pretty mediocre compared to the others in the year that they've been dragged through.

For a while Quinn follows Santana through the streets, but it changes when they run into a road sign. Quinn reads it aloud like it means something; she closes her eyes and swallows. And then Santana follows Quinn, lets her hand be pulled through streets she remembers like a distant memory faded with time. She probably should have thought about it though, probably should have told Quinn to think it all through. Because revisiting places from a past they can never get back isn't such a good idea when they're fragile and on the tip of breaking.

:;:;

Santana recognizes it immediately, lets her hand be dropped and lets Quinn step forward with shaky legs and flinching feet. She remembers walking up the steps, ringing the bell, running through the kitchen and lounging on the couch. She remembers standing with a young Quinn in the dining room and pleading for a sleepover, standing with an older Quinn and pleading for forgiveness and a home for the baby growing inside her stomach.

"Should I ring the doorbell?" Quinn asks, and Santana frowns at it. "I haven't been home for so long, should I just walk in or knock?" Her voice wavers, because she surely must know the answer to that already. She surely must know that there won't be anybody home to answer the door or welcome them in.

"Quinn." Santana says. It's not a question; she's not asking what's going on. Santana says it more to get Quinn to understand. To tell her indirectly that this charade needs to be dropped before she starts believing it. Most of the glee club had visited their family homes in the few weeks after Mr. Schue had gone missing. Most of them came back with sour faces and bitter tongues and blood all down their fronts. Most of them came back with withdrawn eyes and quite lips. Santana wishes she'd taken care of Quinn, because the Fabray house looks nothing like home.

Santana pulls her away before it gets any weirder or any of her dead family members decides to jump out the front door and try for a good bite. (It'd happened to Finn, his mom had wailed about with sharp teeth and Kurt had stood still and silent.) Quinn reluctantly gets pulled along. They all know there's no place to call home anymore; they find it in other people, in each other. And whilst half of Santana's home is off pushing a wheelchair, the other half needs saving.

So she rubs her thumb along Quinn's knuckles and does just that.

:;:;

They spend another night in another house in another street.

They're lost now and Santana has to sit in the chair placed by the window and watch out for creatures that haunt the light and dark, day and night. She wonders if Brittany's lost as well, if she's clinging onto the people she knows and the memories she holds and the flashes of her behind her eyelids. Santana remembers the salute and starts to think, with every dragged on second and endless minute, if it was more like a goodbye.

:;:;

Tomorrow, Santana thinks. Tomorrow she'll see Brittany. Tomorrow they will all find each other and make their way to the border and plead their innocence, swear on their purity.

:;:;

Quinn kills five other creatures and Santana kills almost fourteen. She leaves one of them lying against the cold sidewalk because she recognizes her from the cheer-camp Coach Sylvester had sent them on three years ago. Quinn comes out of it all with a sprained wrist and a broken finger. Santana comes out of it with what feels like another cracked rib and a broken nose. Her ear drips with blood from where one of them had lunged at the lobe with a sharp piece of glass.

Quinn checks her over for bites and Santana does the same for Quinn. They'll be back soon. They'll be checking all the others soon as they make their bid for freedom.

:;:;

"Q, do you ever think about her?" Santana asks, her hands swinging by her thigh with Quinn's fingers interlocked and grazing along her pants. Quinn nearly trips over her own feet at the sudden sound. The street is so silent Santana half expects cowboys to step out from the corners and start shooting, like in the old Texas movies Brittany made her sit through.

Quinn looks to her side and then back at the road in front. "Who?"

Santana bites her lip and shrugs. "Beth." She says. "The baby. Bundle of joy, alien artifact. Whatever, you know?"

Quinn is quick to shake her head, and Santana knows that it's a lie. She's had years to work on reading Quinn Fabray; it's all so obvious nowadays. Like looking into a mirror and knowing exactly what's going through the mind of the person in front. Quinn doesn't like to talk about the things she doesn't have. Beth Corcoran being high on the list.

"She's probably dead by now." Quinn says, and Santana doesn't miss the giant gulp she chokes down. "But I don't think about her, Santana. Not ever."

It's a lie and they both have to swallow it and nod, because Quinn's hand just got extra tight over her fingers and there's so much truth that just bled out it's hurting them both.

:;:;

"You're still in love with her." Quinn says, and it's Santana's turn to hiccup and turn against her will. It's getting dark again and they've stopped at five different houses for toilet breaks. Santana's fingers go limp at the words and Quinn holds on tighter. "It's been over a year, San, and you're still pretending not to care that she broke your heart."

Santana shrugs, shakes her head. Because she tried being the only lesbian in Lima a year back and it didn't work out for her. Brittany left her to battle on her own and she crawled back into her shell and picked up the mask she'd discarded. They were always better friends than partners, Santana thinks; they were always better together than apart. "Who?" Santana asks anyway, playing dumb and just wanting to hear her name through the dead silence.

Quinn does a little laugh that doesn't reach her eyes. "You know who."

"I love her." Santana nods. "Like I love you. I'm not in love with her."

Quinn shakes her head. "She's fucking Artie, I think. She might have got it on with Finn back at school as well." She says, shrugs like she's not fucking the very same guy. "Everyone was fucking someone, Santana. Except you."

Santana sniffs and walks a little faster, flexing for her gun with no intent on using it. "You're sharing Finn's uncooked sausage with Berry and Brittany and whoever he thinks he can keep under his frilly panties, and you're wanting me to be jealous? Just wait till one of you sprouts a bump and has to watch out for the lizard malfunction skipping out your ass."

Quinn laughs and shrugs. It's silent for a few seconds and they round the corner and spy a supermarket. Santana needs a bottle of water or something to make her mouth less dry, maybe some toothpaste to stop the horrible taste of blood she keeps getting in the back of her throat.

"I don't think there's room for love and survival, you know?" Quinn says. "We can either fight and make it out of here alive, or fall in love and die. Mike and Tina probably chose the wrong one."

:;:;

And because Santana doesn't think it's the worst day to hit the universe as of yet. Because she's thinking that maybe tomorrow isn't today. Because Quinn's fingers are loosening around Santana's palms and because the world nowadays seems to love kicking her where it hurts the most and laughing at the way she deals with it, Santana runs out of bullets at the worst possible moment.

"Shoot blanks or something." Quinn says, tugging the bat to her chest and starting to step backwards. The road is piling full of leering zombies and there are too many for Santana and Quinn to take with four fists and a splintered bat. Santana throws the bag on the ground and steps back with Quinn, feet tumbling over rocks behind them. They could either go full force into the crowd and come out yellow and flaky and hungry, charge into them all with a raised fist and end up a gooey mess against the sidewalk, or just run. The latter sounds more appealing.

"Blanks are actual things, Quinn. It's not just like shooting nothing." Santana replies, gritting her teeth and holding the empty gun out in front anyway. The infected might be more intelligent than they seem and just run from the sheer appearance. They're all inching forward with a step at a time, as Quinn and Santana stumble backwards and pray they accidentally fall into a black hole. "We're gonna have to run."

"They're faster than us." Quinn says back, shaking her head. Tears are brimming in her eyes and Santana knows Quinn is the worst person to deal with any kind of pain or stress or fear. Quinn's a three-year-old girl scared of the ghouls living in her closet at heart.

Santana shrugs, stops still and readies herself to spin around and haul them both away from this massacre. Down the street and into an invisible haven. "Feel like battering them all yourself then, Fabray?" Quinn doesn't answer, reaches forward instead as she stops to to pull Santana along and away. "Three." Santana says, yanking out of Quinn's hold and linking their fingers instead. "Two." Quinn opens her mouth to object but the monsters are picking up, getting closer and angrier and their blood will only smell stronger. "One."

Santana spins, knocking Quinn away and off balance until she grabs for her wrist and drags her along with her. She can hear the footsteps getting quicker, can hear the growls getting louder and the gnashing behind them picking up in numbers. Quinn's feet are unsteady as they run and Santana holds her breath for safety.

:;:;

They run for a whole hour, hands swinging between them and fingers clutching onto the skin that isn't dripping with sweat. The monsters don't deter and Santana wonders, though the numbers are heavy and their kicks and thrusts are strong, if they should both just turn around and face the odds, face the music. Her breath is wheezy and her legs are tired and she knows if they keep this up they'll go down without fighting or taking any of them fuckers with them.

Quinn's eyes are scared, dribbling with tears that don't quite belong on her cheeks. They're wiped clean from the wind as she skids through the air. Her fingers shake against Santana's wrist, her breath is ragged and quick. Santana can't even remember the breathing exercises Sue Sylvester taught them, so Quinn has no chance with all the time she took away from the squad.

Before Santana can change her mind, spin them both round and steal the racket hanging onto Quinn's thumb and forefinger, she suddenly feels a lot lighter and she's running faster than she did before. When she looks to the side to find out the reason for this sudden energy burst, she realizes the weight lost was Quinn, and her best friend is a few feet back and rocking against the floor with a cut up knee. The army of zombies licks their lips and get ready to pounce as they scurry closer. Santana stops still and her heart seizes up.

Her first instinct is to fly back and gather the remaining pieces of Quinn's ruptured body as she clambers her way back against the gravel and it looks pitiful. She doesn't get to consider another option as she just sprints around and tries to get to Quinn before the monsters. But just as she hits the ground to pull Quinn into a hug, (if they're going down, they're going down together), one of the creatures jumps at them with a wide mouth and sparkling eyes. She awaits the pain with lids locked shut and a trembling body buried beneath her arms.

There's a shot. Something falls and something else growls. Another shot and another fall, another slap as a body hits the floor and a bullet flies. Santana keeps her hold around Quinn tighter, squeezes harder, and doesn't allow her eyes to open. There's running, feet scattering and grunts and groans and swearing from a mouth that's human.

Finn is pulling Quinn away and shrugging her into a hold as he cradles her around and she rocks against his chest. Before Santana can comprehend what's going on Zizes is tugging at her shoulders, pulling her hand. And she manages to look behind, manages to throw her head back in time to see Sam and Puck shooting guns and throwing rackets over and under and through the creatures that so nearly took Santana's life.

:;:;

Santana follows Zizes and Finn back to a large house in the middle of the countryside. It takes at least two hours to get there and Quinn is still cooped up in Finn's fishy arms. His sleazy smile and fat fingers are all over her to sooth and calm and do everything Santana's been doing a pretty fine job of over the past few days. The walk is in silence except for the few whispers and murmurs that escape nipple-tripple's mouth.

As soon as they're up the stairs, through the door and thrust into a large room to the left of the staircase, the whole glee club appear and Santana sighs with such relief she almost falls to the ground. Rachel actually does, slips off the sofa at the sudden noise and hits the carpet with a squeal. Brittany looks up at what's caused the sudden commotion and stares straight at Santana for what feels like hours.

"We've been looking for you." Kurt says, standing and walking over to see why Quinn is in such a state and why Finn's making such a fuss over her tears. Quinn's still in shock, Santana thinks, and remembers back to squeezing her eyes closed and just waiting to be ripped apart, because they were sure they'd hit their roadblock.

Quinn's nudging away all the attention though, flinging her arm about. And Berry's recovering from toppling to the floor, rubbing her ass like it's the tragedy of the year, and glaring at Finn and the pathetic attention he's trying to spray out as a gift. There's something off in the air though, something not quite as happy as they're all pretending to be. Kurt's eyes are red from where he feigned concern, Artie's avoiding everyone's eyes from where he's playing with his wheels and Brittany's face isn't as relived as she thought it would be. And there's someone missing. Santana's stomach drops.

"Where's Mercedes?" She asks, looking around the room to make sure she hasn't missed anything. Puck and Sam are still out gunning the creatures down or walking back. Santana wracks her brain trying to think if they'd been the only defenders there. "I'm serious." Santana says, and crosses her arms over her chest. "Where the fuck is Mercedes?"

Quinn's looking over at Santana and then back at the group, concern etched in her eyes and lips moving along as she counts the total. Her mouth turns down at the realization. "Kurt?" Quinn turns to the boy closest to her, Kurt's hands still hover over blond hair, and he swivels around immediately.

There's a deadly silence mulling in the air and Santana turns to Brittany expecting to gather answers from the features. She has to look away quick though, because Brittany's eyes are still fixed to Santana, and they're prickling with water and arched as if she's about to start balling any second. It's the answer Santana didn't want.

"What happened?" She says, clenching her fist and preparing to scream at everyone. Show them what the bad side of Lima Heights really teaches children about getting what they want. "I swear to the heavens shining down on all your sweet pale asses, unless you all don't-"

"Her leg was ripped to pieces."

Santana turns to see Sam walking in with blood soaking through his shirt. She bites her tongue not to whimper aloud. Quinn's sniffing and singing a repetitive song of denial and the others in the room join in for the chorus and the cry. Santana waits for Sam to continue, his eyes firm and detached, mouth in a straight line and nostrils flared.

"We just went out to check the corridors and when we came back she was," he stops, swallows and looks disgusted. With himself, she thinks, for showing emotion. With the world for being so damn cruel. "She'd gone cold and blood was everywhere. There was nothing I could do to-"

Kurt storms out the room and Berry follows after him with hurried steps and tears trailing behind. Sam doesn't react or acknowledge it. Puck rests his hand on Sam's shoulder, fingers squeezing white.

"We took her to a car and burnt it all away. Set her alight and said a few prayers." Sam shrugs, Puck's hand slides away. "Those zombie fuckers weren't gonna have a taste of her." He says, and Quinn's on the floor, Finn's by her side and Artie and Brittany are sitting behind her and sniffling to their own tune. Zizes loads a gun on the left cushion of the sofa. Santana just stares and shakes her head from the tears.

She feels even lonelier than when she hadn't found them all. She feels like she's still waiting for tomorrow, the day when they can all step forward and celebrate their safety.

:;:;

Brittany drags her finger down the length of the cut scabbing on her cheek. It's rough and fragile and Santana doesn't even remember where or how or when she got it. There are other aches much worse now. Like how her heart beats irregularly whenever she thinks about the group members they've lost. How when she locks eyes with Brittany, a voice inside Santana's head tells her she can't hold onto this; she can't choose love over life.

"You're safe." Brittany says, but it sounds shaky and unsure, her words are icicles falling from a cave and shattering and scattering around their feet. Brittany's eyes don't broadcast the relief she's forced her sentence out with. "You're okay."

Santana closes her eyes against Brittany's finger, remembers a time when this feeling brewing in her chest was the scariest experience of her life. She nods and feels Brittany's fingers slide down her skin with the movement, land somewhere against her chin and lip. "For now." She replies, feels Brittany's thumb linger against her jaw line.

"I waited up forever." Brittany says, her whisper reaching Santana's lips and wrapping a pattern along her tongue. "Because you said tomorrow would come real fast and it didn't. I was a worried little panda and Rachel said even my eyes were turning black, like the worried little panda."

Santana nods, opens her own lids to check Brittany's eyes and smiles in response. Brittany smells like sweat, the wrong kind. The kind that isn't from running away from the monsters hiding in the closet, not the kind when fear gets too overwhelming and everything gets a whole lot scarier. The kind that Santana was most used to in High School, and she immediately hates that she stopped when Brittany had called, one foot still tumbling out the bathroom. She'd heard the squeak of Artie's wheels trailing out.

Brittany's eyes are still serious. "I couldn't sleep without-"

Santana just leans away, loses Brittany's touch and shakes away her words. It's a lie. It's all a lie and Santana doesn't want to hear feigned truths from Brittany's mouth. Nothing matters to anyone anymore.

:;:;

Santana tries to stop caring after they lose a fourth person. Another jigsaw piece crashes from her puzzle of plans and Santana decides to scrap it all. Maybe she should just go alone. That way she wouldn't feel this heartache and nausea and bile whenever they came back with a story of another life lost, another leg falling and another slash against the heart so delicately beating against Santana's cracked ribs.

Zizes gets ambushed and by the time Puck and Santana have beaten them all away Lauren has so many bites along her skin it would only take seconds for the seizures and transformation to begin. Puck denies it all but Zizes just calls them out on their bullshit and goes back to the vow they all took when the classroom was the bomb shelter and they all thought the war would end.

Santana shoots her in the head before they become liars and cheats and enemies. Because if nothing else, Santana is a girl that keeps her promises close to her chest and drawls them out one at a time. Santana does it out of love and friendship and pity. It ruins her completely and she stays out and watches Puck smash windows and bricks and hungry zombies until they can't see anymore and she sets Zizes body alight. They'll give no satisfaction to the monsters that pray on untouched blood and tearing flesh.

It's suitable; Lauren Zizes leading them home with cut up arms, bruised thighs and broken knuckles.

:;:;

Santana doesn't sleep for a whole week after watching a bullet pelt through Lauren's brain. She can see it happening behind her shaky eyelids. She can feel the trigger against the pad on her finger. Can hear the beat as the bullet slices past her trembling hand. The air was thick and suffocating, heavy and hot. The blood stays dried against her thumb and wrist. The ash from the fumes stay embedded in her shorts.

She'd slapped Brittany away when she'd tried to wipe Santana clean. She'd kicked the chair that was flat beneath her ass and walked out the room to find silence in her own company.

Because she stopped caring after she realized no one was ever meant for keeping.

:;:;

Puck starts to go out by himself, comes back battered and bruised and broken. Whilst the others sleep in various rooms in the house, (somewhere there's always movement, mindless sex to relieve the pressures of the day, to wipe away the stress and hide the fear if only for a few seconds. Santana knows the different combinations. Knows the one person who is always somewhere in the sum,) and Santana stays awake in the front room with plasters and bandages waiting by her thighs.

He's getting worse. Coming back later, staggering with a heavier limp and the cuts are getting too deep to dress. Sometimes she forgets what Puck looked like before. Without the cuts and bruises and sour face. When he didn't look dreadfully scared and constantly in pain. When his eyes were bright with excitement and energy, not always prickling with drops that never ever make an appearance.

And Santana wraps bandages over his wounds, rests her tired head against his shoulder when he's done screaming insults about the dead creatures he's massacred. Santana breathes in the sweat and the rusty blood still lining his bones, and she knows he's breaking. Already broken. And there's not enough glue in the world to save him.

But then she reminds herself not to care. And it hurts more than anything in the world.

:;:;

Santana's sitting alone on the sofa, bandages and tissues and a jug of water with a sponge floating atop staring back at her. She won't get sleep tonight. Just like the night before, and the night before. The floorboards are already starting to creak upstairs, the movement that seems to seep through to Santana's ears wherever she is.

"Sucks to be gay." Kurt says, perching by the doorway and looking at Santana with a fake smile. "Half of them have never had so much action, right?" He carries on; oblivious to the messages Santana wants to send via glare. She looks away and slumps deeper into the cushions. "I don't even think they know who's on top of them, just that it feels good and it's over quick."

"Brittany's on top of them." Santana says, swallowing bile and trying not to sound as bitter as she knows she does. She remembers when they were younger, whispering about when sex should actually mean something. Brittany always thought it was a game, a way to keep people happy. It's why she offered herself to Sam during his mourning for Mercedes. It's fucked up and gross. She grunts in disgust aloud and Kurt raises an eyebrow.

"She doesn't know better." He replies, shrugging. Like he knows her better than Santana. Like he knows how deep and dreadful their relationship gets. "She does it with good intention." Kurt says and looks up to the ceiling, as though he can see the antics upstairs. His eyes are tired; they've been tired for a whole year now. Since the day he held the gun in his hand and pressed the trigger at a boy he will forever love. Kurt hasn't been the same for a long time.

Santana nods along, because Brittany does know better. Brittany is better than half the people in the building they're all squatting in. Maybe that's why she sleeps around so endlessly, so carelessly. Maybe she just cares too much. But maybe she's just being selfish. Maybe Santana only cares so much because people aren't meant to behave like this in a war so violent. Maybe they're all as bad as each other.

Kurt coughs, quiet and practiced. "You should see the way she looks at you though." He says and Santana swallows and concentrates on the gun wedged in her pocket. She closes her eyes and imagines shooting a bullet at the wall to stop this shit from spilling down his lips. "There's always been that thing. Right from when you first started glee."

She stands up and pulls out her gun, feels her feet itching to move. The air's turned ugly and she thrusts her eyes open and blinks away the mishaps. Because she misses it, the secrets her and Brittany used to keep, the secrets they didn't. She misses Quinn's leadership and confidence. Kurt's ambition and Berry's ruthlessness. She misses Tina and Mike and Mercedes and Zizes. She misses it all and it hurts somewhere in her chest, a place she's pressed a gun to at night, felt as the metal grazed along her heartbeat. She's imagined pressing down on the trigger.

Kurt's mouth is left hanging open when she storms out of the room and leaves the front door hanging ajar and waiting.

:;:;

She finds Puck after trailing down three streets, following the noises of shots and grunts and cries. He's bloody and sweaty and a vicious mess. There are bodies of the infected lying at his feet, scattering for miles, and she knows this is where he comes to kill anything that crosses his path. He'll settle for just battering the limp limbs if there's nothing alive to destroy.

Santana can see the stained road, a black explosion in the middle of red blood. She remembers dropping the match onto Lauren Zizes and staggering away with legs still trembling from shock.

"Noah?" She calls and watches as Puck swings around with a bat raised high and a gun hanging out his left pocket. His face hasn't calmed yet. His muscles are still clenched and his feet stay put. She walks over to him with slow steps and a steady hand out. "They're already dead, Puck."

He shrugs; scratches are already clawed into his arm, bruises rising against his cheek. She winces.

"We're not like this." She says, blinking away the droplets threatening her eyes. Puck's a state, Zizes' remains lay feet away and it's all monumentally fucked up. It's all so very wrong and dangerous. She never thought the world would end like this, that a scientist could create such a beastly thing. "You're not like this."

He shakes his head and almost laughs; she can see his mouth open ready for it. Instead he sneers down at her. "Not like what?" Puck waves his hand around, gestures to all the death they're soaked in. All the blood that puddles at her feet. "You think they should fucking live, then? That it?"

Santana crosses her arms, feels the gun she'd shoved in her pocket. "We kill because we need to, Puck. We slaughter them because it's fucking necessary, because there's no other way."

He spits to the ground. It looks ugly and so uncharacteristic that even Puck cringes. His finger points to the mess behind her, to Lauren Zizes and the creatures reaching out of the circle of ash. "Is that some kind of joke? Haven't you seen-"

"They kill because they want to, Puck." She says, shakes her head and swallows back a lump. "They kill because it feels good and because they want to." Puck blinks back at her with eyes cradling droplets. "They're the monsters here, Noah, not us. Not you. But this," she waves her hand around at the hundreds of scattered arms and legs and bodies. "This is wrong."

Puck closes his eyes for a few long minutes. She starts to count but the smell and the surrounding and the rapid beating of her heart sets her off beat. When he opens his eyes, he's lost. Santana can't place who he is anymore. "We all turn into monsters eventually, Santana." He says, blows out a heavy breath in defeat. "We're all somewhere along in the scale. We're all seconds away from bursting. Who the fuck cares if one of us explodes?"

"Noah, I get it. You're angry because they-"

"No, don't do that. Don't act like you know me." He sneers, lips twisting up and bat swaying by his side. She wonders if she knows anyone at all anymore. She wonders if she's lost Brittany as well. If Quinn's falling too. "You try to fix me every night, Santana. Bandage me up, plaster my cuts." He swallows back and Santana squints not to cry. Bites her gums until she tastes blood. "Go home."

She looks to the floor and wipes at her cheeks, below her eyes and expects there to be tears. Expects nothing and everything all at once. "I don't have a home." She says and sounds more fearful than she's ever let anyone in on. She sounds broken and lost. It doesn't come out the way she's practiced.

They just stand and stare at each other until Puck turns back around and trips down the street with a bat dripping with blood and a gun still warm. Santana wants to follow, wants to stay safe with him. She doesn't want to face the night sky alone; she doesn't want to be as lonely as she knows she is.

:;:;

She collapses to the floor in an empty field and prays for sleep. She prays for anything; for death and for life, chaos and safety, nobody and Brittany. And she doesn't even care if she wakes up in the morning. There's blood leaking out from her chest and she's forgotten if she killed the monster at the field gates. She's forgotten if it was a bite or a stab.

Santana closes her eyes and the blackness stays the same.

:;:;


	3. Part Three

:;:;

The first time she wakes up, Santana notices the slick wet liquid pooling around her hands. It's starting to get light now and when she lifts her arm up, her fingers drip with blood, suffocating her nails and staining the clothes beneath. Her eyes are drifting in and out of fuzziness and her head is starting to feel dizzy. When she closes her eyes, she's sure she feels her organs shut down alongside them.

:;:;

When she wakes up the second time she feels strong hands pressing firmly into her side as they carry her away through the fields. She smells sweat and dirt and sick. She feels the rush of air coming from the heavy breaths above her. When Santana tries to lift her head against the chest she's pressed against, she swears she catches a glimpse of Puck looking down at her with worried eyes and a tight mouth.

:;:;

The first things she notices are the fingers making paths down her face, up her nose and round her lips. They're soft, smooth and silky and Santana recognizes the touch immediately. She jolts up, her whole body lifting from the bed and hitting the mattress when she falls. Her chest is seizing up and when Santana's eyes fly open all she sees is red. All she feels is pain.

Brittany jerks away but keeps her hand tightly placed across Santana's cheek, her eyes searching down the length of her body and then up to her chest. "San, don't panic, okay?" She says, stroking a palm round her shoulders. Santana frowns and tries to look around, tries to sit or lean. "And stay still because you'll probably bleed everywhere if you go wild."

"Where am I?" She gasps, noticing the old floral wallpaper and the sheets around her inked with blood. There's a mountain of tissues in the corner of the room along with a wooden chair and rusting desk. She recognizes it all as the house, the base she'd been brought to months ago with a shaky Quinn. "What happened?"

"Kurt said you stormed off and…" Brittany shrugs, biting her bottom lip and leaning forward with a small frown that sends her eyebrows tilting downward. "And then Puck came back without you and he was worried, so we were worried, so I was worried. And we went looking for you. Like the time Lord Tubbington ran away because I hid the alcohol. Puck found you and we thought you were going to die, you know?"

Santana groans, tries to turn to her side, away from Brittany's blabbering mouth and affectionate eyes. Her chest stings and sends pain all through her body, so she resigns to lie on her back and blink up at the ceiling with a nonchalant expression that's so uncaring it hurts. Brittany seems to get the point; her voice hesitates as she trails off into a whole explanation of how Artie had stitched right across her stomach.

"I tried to wash all the blood off, but you were kind of bleeding everywhere." Brittany's fingers stop dancing over Santana's skin. They stop still and press deeper into her muscle. "But everything's alright now." She says, her words hang on the edge of a cliff, waiting for a response to decide whether to jump or collapse back. "Santana, everything's alright now, isn't it?" She repeats, voice a little more anxious.

Santana shrugs, feels her stomach stretch and contract in pain, and she winces but tries for a nod anyway. "Sure, Britt." She says, staring into the blank paint licked onto the ceiling. It's a hideous contrast with the disorder of flowers thrown against the wallpaper. "It's alright now."

It doesn't feel alright, but Santana leans away from the heavy sigh Brittany releases, air rushing past Santana's goose bumps. It feels horribly wrong and upside down. But she lets Brittany have her moment.

:;:;

It heals quickly and discreetly. She aches and hurts with every stretch and Santana doesn't even wince anymore. Sometimes she reaches for the highest cupboards by choice, takes comfort in the rush of pain and knows it'll only get better. She tests herself to see how much she can handle.

And they threw away the sheets stained with her blood a long time ago. Sometimes she'll turn to see Brittany watching her from across the room, lip clenched between teeth and tired eyes. Santana feels her hand hover over her abdomen whenever she lies down to sleep through the day, when the sun is burning through the windows and Sam and Artie play cards in the corner with loud laughs. Brittany lies beside her and even though Santana always makes a point to turn away, she'll wake up with fingers checking over her scars.

She has to remind herself not to care. Because Brittany's finding comfort elsewhere and no one seems to have adopted the tactic of going it alone. Caring means there's always something to lose. And Santana's lost enough.

:;:;

"You've not talked in ages." Quinn says, sliding next to her on the steps outside the front door. "Like, properly talked."

Santana's loading bullets into the gun and taking them out. Loading and emptying, loading and emptying. It calms her down and dissipates her boredom as they wait for Puck and Kurt to get back from the shops. Berry's voice is hollering through the cracked windows and it sounds like Finn yells back and smashes something. A vase, maybe. Rachel's heart.

Quinn yanks the gun away. "Jesus, Santana, stop being an annoying shit and stop ignoring everyone."

Santana shrugs and reaches for the gun before Quinn leans further away and raises her arm higher. She refuses to play along with the childish games and just turns back with her eyebrows raised. "You know what, Q? You're all just finding me boring because I'm the only person you haven't decided to fuck yet. I got nothing to say and you got nothing to offer. Get over your sweet ass." She says, looking out to the fields surrounding them, like an island caught in the trail of a muddy pit with blotches of dead grass bleeding red and decapitated limbs.

"When will you learn to grow the fuck up, Santana?" Quinn spits, throwing the gun below them. She peers down as it crashes against the stone steps. "Because we're all waiting for it."

She leaves Santana alone with a cold rush of air and silence ready to kill.

:;:;

Sam gets caught in a storm of zombies and Finn staggers back on his own. They don't talk about it. They don't' share funny stories about his guppy mouth or his girly hair. They sit in separate rooms and use up old tissues already smothered in tears and blood and gunk. Brittany tries to hug Santana because they both shared his bed and licked his lips, but Santana walks away before her arms reach her waist.

Puck and Santana go out with a box of matches and an empty Zippo. They come back with scars running down their arms and ash creasing their skin. Quinn rocks back and forth in the corner and Artie burns the playing cards.

They'd almost been sucked into the false sense of security, the life they'd bargained for and prayed to keep. They all almost forget the dangers outside their broken windows and smashed doors.

Santana doesn't cry.

:;:;

Puck starts going out late again and coming back with broken bones and bruised shins. His eyes are cracked when they blink and every time his lids open Santana sees a soul that just wants out. She doesn't try and fix him, she doesn't give him desperate hugs when he's bandaged up and she doesn't hum songs to him when their eyes refuse to close.

Santana leaves him be and watches him destroy what's left of the spark buried beneath his shell.

:;:;

Beneath them the world is ending and the monsters sniff at the cracks in every welt.

"I miss you." Brittany says when they've reached the peak of the mountain so far from home. So far from anywhere Santana recognizes. Her pinkie is tied with Brittany's and their skin grazes against the dents their palms open out to. Santana remembers a time when this was the only thing that mattered. When leaving everything behind was what they'd planned beneath their tent in the duvet covers. "Where do you go?" She asks, feet creeping to the edge.

"I'm here." Santana replies, squeezing their pinkies together and tugging Brittany back into a safe spot. Their arms brush together and Santana closes her eyes momentarily and feels Brittany turn to watch her. Santana looks on at the war raging beneath them. At the creatures fighting for the remains of broken limbs and mutilated flesh.

Brittany shakes her head, eyes never leaving Santana's shaky lips. "You're never here." She says. "You're always somewhere else. Somewhere far away, like Sam and Tina." Santana feels Brittany's eyes leave, feels her breath shift against Santana's skin and feels a weight dropping from atop of her shoulders. "You're never with me anymore."

"I'm with you now."

"You're not." Brittany says, shrugs and bites her lip into her mouth. Santana turns to look at her with a small frown, but she finds it hard to portray emotions nowadays. She finds it hard not to cry at everything stuttered from Brittany's devastating lips. "You're not my Santana, but that's okay." She continues, eyes blinking away the ponds arising in her eyes. "I like this one anyway."

:;:;

Puck tells her the plan five minutes before he beckons everyone into the lounge. She stumbles on her reply but nods along, agrees to any of his suggestions, because Puck's always known best and Santana's always been a follower. Ever since she strolled behind Quinn in her cheerleading uniform, and watched out for the next trend Brittany would bring into fashion. Santana's always been a follower and never the leader.

"We're leaving tomorrow." He says, looking around at everyone perched on the brink of flat cushions. His shirt is covered in dried blood and they stopped bringing back clean clothes a long time ago. They stopped caring about hygiene the moment they stepped out into the McKinley corridors and had to step over bodies and avoid puddles of blood. "We need to get to the barrier if we want to survive. And staying here is getting us nowhere."

"We should wait for people to come." Berry replies, standing and shaking her head immediately with her hands moving to clasp around her stomach. She's the only one that clung to hope, the only one that has faith in the country that abandoned all who fell behind the walls of hell. "People are coming for us and the other survivors stuck in Lima. I know they are." Rachel's voice wavers on her last words.

Finn reaches out to hide a hand in her palm and Quinn averts her eyes when his thumb starts to dance circles along Berry's knuckles. Santana still thinks their fucked up triangle of hearts is the most pathetic thing since the lizard baby incident. She's never cared about which of the girls won the jelly of mess wedged between them.

"Get your humongous schnoz out of your elfy little ass, Berry. No one's coming for us; else we'd be fucking safe by now, wouldn't we?" Santana says, rolls her eyes and gestures toward Puck to continue.

He coughs, looks around at everyone again and passes by Rachel's scornful face without wincing. "So get some sleep. Because we're leaving early tomorrow. We're going to find safety, yeah?"

Kurt stands up and wheels Artie out the room with Rachel padding along with heavy footsteps and a lip hanging out so low Santana's sure she'll trip over it one day.

:;:;

She's piling knives into one of the backpacks when Brittany walks into the kitchen and jumps up onto the counter in front. Santana doesn't turn, doesn't stop rummaging through the cutlery draw, because she can smell the sweat pressed against Brittany's skin and she heard the noises from the room above less than half an hour ago.

"Why do we have to leave?" Brittany asks, picking up one of the knives from the side and running a finger down the spine. Santana wants to roll her eyes because Berry's probably already started brainwashing everyone to her advantage, Brittany chosen first in a tactic they've all used before.

Santana sighs, cuts the edge of her finger on one of the knives and throws it into the bag as she wipes the blood onto her pants. "Because," she says, shrugging as she remembers Puck's explanation. "We need to get to the barrier where we won't be worried about dying every second." Brittany's face looks blank, so Santana releases a heavy puff of air. "For security, happiness-"

"Happiness?" She asks, a frown creasing her face. Santana stops searching through the forks and looks up to see Brittany staring back at her. "But I thought that I made you happy?"

Santana doesn't have a response, just opens her mouth and prays something will sound out. "Brittany-"

"You said that I made you the happiest." Brittany says, and her eyes seem to roam the whole of Santana's face and she feels raw and exposed and like a vile imitation of the girl Brittany still pretends to see. "Remember?"

"That was a long time ago."

Brittany worries her lip between her teeth. "But I thought we were best friends. I thought you loved-"

"Don't you have some fat train-wrecks to screw somewhere?" Santana spits out, folding her arms across her chest and watching Brittany recoil backwards on top of the counter. She feels horrible as soon as the words materialize on her tongue. But she doesn't want to hear fairytales of what they used to be like. She can't stand to hear the stories that she clings to whenever she closes her eyelids, because Santana knows them all by heart.

Brittany jumps down, leans close to Santana but doesn't even flinch when she stumbles away out of reach. "Why are you leaving us all behind, Santana?" She asks, tilting back on the soles of her feet. "You said you'd never leave me behind."

"We're leaving together, Brittany." Santana replies, looking anywhere but at Brittany's pleading eyes.

"I don't mean that." She says and walks out of the room.

:;:;

When they set off the next morning, Berry kicks the door shut with a petulant look plastered over her face. The only luggage they carry with them is two backpacks hanging from Artie's wheelchair handles and Puck's back. Santana carries a gun in her pocket and Quinn sways a bat by her side with absolutely no intention of using it.

Brittany walks to the side with Quinn, and Santana walks ahead on her own with Rachel and Finn close behind. Kurt pushes Artie, and Puck rolls a racket between his palms at the back, his eyes constantly scanning around them for any oncoming wars or trouble.

Santana kicks along a stone and watches it accidentally roll into a drain.

:;:;

It's not as easy as Santana thought. It never is.

They get surrounded after walking for four hours straight. (Quinn cries and Berry runs to hide behind the nearest person. Brittany stands alone in the middle of the circle they've created and Puck passes out rackets and knives and bats. Santana pulls out her gun and cocks it quickly before thrusting it out to the creatures sprinting toward them.)

Somewhere in the hustle, Finn disappears and Rachel screams louder. Brittany's hands are white around the bat, her eyes searching around them. Puck's screaming something and running into the crowd with a bat swinging by his side. Artie's pointing a gun in different directions, and Santana knows he's never used one of them. She knows it'd be a miracle if they all make it out alive. Quinn hovers by Kurt and they both squeeze their eyes shut, wishing it all away.

Santana watches Brittany. She breathes in and out and hears the footsteps ready to pounce. She feels the rush of air as the monsters swallow their oxygen away. Brittany's blinking it all in, nostrils flared and jaw clenched. She catches Santana's eyes and doesn't even try to smile.

When Brittany wipes a finger beneath her heavy eyes, droplets turning into rivers, she salutes silently. And Santana presses her own fingers in a tight line and raises it up to her forehead, watching the lights sparkle in Brittany's eyes, she salutes silently with a shaky hand and a trembling arm.

And Santana takes it as her cue to leave.

:;:;

She can't see anyone anymore; they're all off in their own little circles fighting for their own lives with their own enemies. She can't see Brittany, or any streaking blond hair that could signify either one of her best friends. She can't see broken wheels, or Kurt's dirty jacket that is so vintage he refuses to change out of it or throw it away. She hasn't seen anything that would suggest the others are anything but perfect.

And she closes her eyes and pulls the trigger on three more zombies, hears them fall beneath the growling and other explosions far off in her head. She swings her other hand with a bat and manages to floor two others immediately kicking wildly until they're bleeding yellow puss and tripping other monsters over in the process.

She looks around when the creature in front falls and claws at her shin, flying back when Santana blows out a bullet. She looks around, (it was a mistake, a fowl hitch in her cords) and sees Finn far away in another crowd of monsters, pouncing with scabs melting his skin and teeth digging into his lips. His eyes look yellow from her angle; his eyes look evil and hungry. Finn looks like one of them, the beasts they all swore not to become, the creatures Finn never wanted to fight for.

But she swings around, knocks a bullet to another's shoulder and elbows an arm behind her and hears the crack and smash of bones. She tries not to think about it, files the image away as another terrible nightmare she lives through.

:;:;

Puck slides up next to her just as he slams his bat against a zombie's head and they both hear the skin slice away from the fragile neck. Santana wants to turn and ask him to check on everyone, she needs to know how the others are and whether he's seen the demented Finn as well. But she kicks at a creature's leg and shoots at another's head before she rummages for more bullets.

"Finn's one of them." Puck says, grunting over the noise as he rams into a zombie, Santana doesn't miss the cracks running blood down his scalp. His voice sounds slightly upset, but they're on the brink of life at the moment and letting emotion in could lose them the game. "He's been bitten and he's in the crowd fighting to get a bite out of Brittany."

Santana stops dead for a moment and Puck has to spin around and swing his bat in a wide circle through the creatures barging forward. She shakes out of it and loads her gun, blinking rapidly and smacking her palm against her temple. There's blood dripping from her fingers when she reaches down to pull the trigger, she's cut open raw everywhere.

"She won't kill him, you know?" Puck screams, elbowing a creature and kicking his foot out to break any bones he smashes into. Santana blows out two bullets in front and then swivels to shoot three behind her. "Santana-'

"I know." She screams, beats her way through the crowd, elbowing and shooting and battering along the way, avoiding bites, sharp teeth and wide-open mouths. She's looking around for bright blond hair and frightened blue eyes, killing and massacring along the way. Santana's not sure who the monsters are here anyway, or if they're all fighting each other.

:;:;

As soon as she's shot every creature in her path, she runs to the other crowds, searching for Brittany and killing the stray monsters jumping out for a chance at dinner. The cut in her chest has opened up again; ripped through scaly scabs running round her stomach. It's staining her shirt red and soaking the fabric that clings to her skin.

But she can hear the growls, the roars, the gnashing of teeth. Santana can hear drowned out screams and Puck's violent grunting. She can hear the sound of bodies crashing to the floor, skulls cracking against the road and bones snapping on the edge of the sidewalk.

She closes her eyes and prays Brittany's not just another fallen body. When she opens her eyelids, her gun goes off instantaneously at the flying arms reaching to claw at her flesh. She kicks at three more and runs to find the crowd she wants.

:;:;

She sweeps in just as Finn is pouncing for Brittany's neck, teeth sharp and blood already trickling down onto his lips. Brittany squeals and recoils away; eye's closed tightly and racket swinging up to shield her face, doing nothing to stop the attack. Santana pressed a bullet into his forehead and kicks him to the ground, pounding bullets round the whole circle until she's out and flying her bat into all the monster's faces. Finn lays motionless on the floor and in the scramble for a piece of meat, the rest of the zombies trip and fall over his dead body and the others around him.

Brittany stays behind her, fingers reaching out and latching onto the hem of Santana's top, pulling her closer against Brittany's chest. Santana looks down at Finn's flaky skin and yellow eyes staring blankly up to the gray sky above. His mouth is hanging open and his arm reaches out toward her with his palm almost grazing her shin. It's too much and Santana grips Brittany's hand and spins them both around until they're fighting through the dead bodies carpeting the gravel.

Puck runs up right behind them, concentrating on lighting a match and throwing them in the directions of the crowd chasing at their tail, until one sets fire and the others bundling together catch the flame too. He turns around, clutches at Brittany's other hand and drags them along faster, before the arrows of fire sprinting closer can reach.

:;:;

Puck carries Artie up the hill, (his wheelchair got lost in the storm and his stomach is ripped open). And Quinn and Rachel pull each other along, hands trembling and swinging, hesitantly comforting the other. Because they've all lost something as the world halts to an end. Kurt's limping with no shoes, clawed toes and mangled heels. Brittany's still blinking her eyes closed and following Santana blindly by their sweaty palms.

From the mountain's edge they can see the war they fled. The fire has spread and everything below is turning to ash. The infected are melting beneath the flame and the heat suffocates their moldy organs. Santana swallows and tries to forget the boy they all left behind, in a body that had been taken over by the disease threatening the remaining survivors. Finn lost the only fight he ever truly needed to win.

:;:;

Rachel cries well into the night and Santana can't stand the atmosphere and ends up walking half way down the hill just for some silence. Her eyelids are heavy and wet and dark. Her mouth is dry and painful, there's blood smeared across her clothes and skin. Everywhere she looks, everything she touches or feels; it all reminds her of the things she's lost and the people she's so eager to stand alongside. Santana can't escape the mess the world is in.

Brittany trips down beside her, eyes tracing across Santana's features until she just stares up at her wavering pupils. She brings her hand up to trace a line across Santana's bottom lip; nail lightly pressing against peeling flesh. Santana doesn't even flinch, she lets her eyes drift shut at the touch for the briefest of moments before turning her head around completely and setting Brittany's finger off-course.

"Do you remember when Kurt told us to wish for something?" Brittany asks, biting her lip and trying to make her smile seem genuine. Santana blinks at her but doesn't attempt to respond, she'd probably croak out some weird noise anyway. Brittany bites at the side of her gums and carries on. "Well, I heard everyone hoping it all away, you know? But I just wished for you."

Santana stares back, their eyes in a war neither one of them wants to win. She remembers looking around and watching Quinn and Sam and Rachel whisper prayers into the silent room. Santana hadn't wished for anything, she'd sat alone and thought of the many ways God had decided to screw her over.

"Santana." Brittany says again, head tilting forward and leaving little space between them. "I wished for-"

"I know what you wished for, Brittany." Santana nods, pushes their foreheads together and closes her eyes as she feels Brittany's warm breath sink through her skin and dance across the scars marking her face. She remembers a time when it would have been the norm to push forward and brush their lips together, nuzzle their noses into the cracks below their eyes. Sometimes she thinks she can still taste Brittany's tongue as she pulled open her jaw for the last time.

Brittany leans forward a little more, as if she's about to press a kiss to Santana's mouth. And Santana almost reacts to it, stops herself just before she sighs into a kiss and pretends Brittany's all that matters. Because she's been waiting forever for a second when she can forget the destruction circling around her. And Brittany's so close, her lips are within breathing distance, her eyes are staring back and Santana has never wanted anything more.

"It's not going to happen." Santana rasps out, swallowing all the need pushing her neck forward. Brittany doesn't seem to hear; she doesn't react and just carries on watching Santana with her bright blue eyes in such a dark dull night. "Brittany, the world is ending." She says, coughs a little and squeezes her eyes shut as Brittany hums inches away from her mouth. "I have to concentrate on our safety."

"And happiness." Brittany adds, nodding and dragging Santana's head up and down with the action.

Santana sighs. She can't remember that feeling, maybe it got lost in the nights she twisted above the mattress in her old bedroom when Brittany had left her and the start of the year already seemed to drag. Maybe she forgot to smile when Brittany started fucking the rest of the school to show Santana her scorecard, (because Santana insisted friendship didn't stop with lady kisses). She pulls away and walks back up the hill, already feeling the loss of Brittany's breath lightly breezing across her lips.

She feels like her world is ending all over again.

:;:;

By the time Santana reaches the top of the hill, Rachel's stopped crying and there's an eerie silence as they all crowd around Artie's body on the floor. It's when she notices the river of blood creeping down the hill and under her shoes, he's spluttering his guts out and Quinn's palm is stroking his cheek as Kurt whispers sweet assurances into his ear. Santana stops still and tries not to scream at them all for just sitting and letting this happen.

"He's not going to make it." Puck whispers as he steps next to her and clenches his rocking fists by his side. Santana shakes her head and surges forward but Puck's already swung an arm around her stomach to pull her back and the pain from the cut that had opened up earlier leaves her gagging and recoiling away.

"We can't just stand and-"

"He's not going to fucking make it, Lopez." He scorns again, pushing her further away. "Now either help him die with dignity or fuck off."

Santana blinks away her shock and looks back down. Artie was never going to make it, his stomach is split open and there's blood frothing out of his lips and running down his cheeks. He's a lost cause, but Santana's not used to giving up. Losing people will never become necessary or any easier, no matter how many times she proclaims her nonchalance toward everyone and everything. She blinks fast and banishes tears, creeping forward and smacking away Puck's warning arm.

"Remember that time we sang that song in the library?" Kurt's saying, laughing and looking down to watch Artie blink up at him, his lips curve up and fall right back down. "Because we wanted to seem hot, remember? Because of that stupid Glist." Quinn looks away guiltily, but her fingers travel under Artie's eyes and down to wipe the blood from around his cheeks. "The librarian got so pissy we thought she'd ban us for life."

He nods, the movement is weak and his eyes squint in pain. Rachel sniffs and lets out a loud sob.

"And the time we all did the crazy dance in the wheelchairs?" Puck laughs, stepping into Artie's view. Quinn smiles up at him and then looks back down and pushes Artie's glasses up his nose. (The wire is snapped and the glass is smashed. Santana briefly remembers Sam holding up a pair of ruined glasses belonging to another innocent member of McKinley.)

"That was cool." Quinn nods and Artie breathes out a laugh that seems to hurt him more, and blood sprays from his lips where Quinn's waiting with her sleeve to wipe away the splatter.

"I mean, you must have some awesome man-power. 'Cause my arms were aching like a bitch afterward, couldn't fucking move for days." Puck says, and Santana can tell it's meant to be light-hearted. She can tell they're all making an effort, and Artie's putting on a smile and pretending the pain isn't killing him. She can see it all like the disaster scene it is, and she turns just in time to see Brittany's eyes widen and her mouth shrieking open.

The scream stops everything and Artie's eyes pool over a little heavier and his mouth drops open a little wider. Brittany's legs shake and threaten to plummet to the ground as she looks down at Artie's body and her hand starts to shake against her jaw, her head swaying right and left. Santana steps to the side, watches her rush forward and drop to the floor, head burying somewhere in his neck as her tears make paths through his skin.

And Santana knows it's the only thing that will really make him happy in his last few minutes. Because Brittany can make anything better, and the people that lose themselves somewhere between her heart and theirs can never find their way back. She's the one person it's impossible to fall out of love with, and Santana knows Artie fell hard.

:;:;

They sit in a circle for hours, until the sun starts to rise and the blood rolling down the hill is bright and sinking into the soil. Brittany's crouched in the middle, hunched over a dead body with blood across her cheeks and lips and her whole face is buried in Artie's shoulder. People stopped crying hours ago and now their skin is stiff and their eyes are all dried up. Everyone seems so empty.

Puck's already checked around the hill for creatures and came back looking blank and shrugging away their questioning glares. Kurt's digging out some candy bar further down the hill from the backpack and Santana can't stand to watch Artie's skin become paler, or hear the whimpers Brittany occasionally releases. Santana doesn't want to see Rachel eyeing up the edge of the mountain or Quinn stare at the grass like she's getting numerous visions all at once.

"This could all just be a dream." Kurt says when she gets closer, chewing on a wrapper and ripping at the plastic. "You know? Maybe we're all just imagining this and we banged our heads in some pathetic dance routine Mr. Schue forced us into. Finn probably knocked us all out with his terrible movements."

Santana smiles and nods. "Yeah." She squeaks, biting her lip and slumping to the floor, like even standing and trying to be nice stresses her nowadays. Kurt turns and nods along with her, but somewhere beneath his hazy eyes it looks like he's finding some betraying truth in his dreamt up theory.

"Maybe the people who die," he starts, shrugging and swallowing a mouthful of the disgusting pink bar. She'd moan about the whole damn tackiness of it all, but Puck loves them and they were all stupid enough to let him pack the food. "I mean, they could all just be waking up, right? Like, maybe we all need to die."

Santana frowns and stares at him for a few minutes, figuring out whether he actually believes this or if Kurt's just fucking with her or trying to make her laugh. But his face is straight and his eyes are searching for answers. "Are you serious?" She asks, breathing out and trying, for once, not to insult him.

Kurt shrugs, nods and bites down on the food swimming through his teeth and sticking to his gums. "Just an idea." He says, raising an eyebrow and turning back to the top of the hill where Quinn's finally manages to pull Brittany away and into a hug. Rachel's crawling to the edge of the hill and looking down at the ash sprinkled along the ground where Finn's body burnt almost a whole day ago.

Santana watches Kurt skid up the mud away from her and wonders if they're all turning a little insane or if she's only just noticed it in all this turmoil.

:;:;

Puck's gone to get more bullets for the guns, Quinn and Kurt are taking Artie's body away, Rachel is sitting at the edge looking down from the cliff, and Brittany's hugging her legs somewhere in the middle of the chaos. She hasn't spoken a word since Puck told them they needed to get ready to move along closer to the border.

Santana sits beside Brittany and stares out in front, there's nothing there and she wonders what Brittany sees through the dark clouds and the lonely trees bare without any leaves. It's heartbreaking to watch the only girl that maintained a smile throughout this torture turning numb along with everyone else.

"Britt?" Santana whispers, turning to look at Brittany, but she doesn't show any sign that she's acknowledged her name being called. She doesn't respond and Santana swallows and wracks her brain for anything that might spark some emotion. "Do you remember the first song I ever sang to you?" She asks, waiting and praying for a reaction.

Brittany just stares forward, blinks and swallows in slow motion.

"We were twelve." She says, carries on and smiles tightly at the memory. "You'd become obsessed with that Disney film about the mermaid and you wanted to sing the song in the boat or something." Santana shrugs, remembers sitting opposite Brittany on the carpet in front of the television with the sound turned down. Brittany had pretending to row as Santana ran her fingers through the fabric coating the floor and pretended to shake off the water. "And I had to pretend to have this weird accent for half the song."

Santana breathes out a laugh and reaches forward for Brittany's hand, entwining their fingers and letting her thumb rub patterns along Brittany's knuckles. Tears are shining through Brittany's eyes again and Santana has to swallow back a lump of her own just at seeing the droplets blunder down her cheeks.

"You remember that, Britt?"

"Yeah." She says, voice hoarse and wavy. "It was the crab. But one of the nice kind, not the ones you said Puck gave as presents at his sleepovers."

Santana smiles and squeezes her fingers. "And you made me kiss you at the end because you hated it when the boat fell over." She laughs. "Remember? We showed it to my Abuela and she told us it was wrong for girls to kiss, so we stopped doing it."

Brittany nods, leaning to rest her head against Santana's shoulder. "We should live under the sea." She says, the words sound louder by her ear and Santana closes her eyes at how naive Brittany is, because she'll never understand why their world had to be ripped apart to make room for the next species to roam the earth. Humans are just a dot on the timeline. "If we turned into mermaids, like in the movie, could we be safe and happy like them?"

"But in the end she turned into a human, Britt." She says, shrugging and feeling Brittany's hair brush against her skin with the movement. "It's because we're the best." Santana whispers and pulls Brittany closer as she hums in agreement. "It's because we're the only kind of people that could win this fight, you know?"

"Artie didn't win." Brittany sniffs. "Blaine and Tina and Mike and Mercedes-"

"No." Santana shakes her head, pulling to kiss the back of Brittany's hand and then letting her arm drop to her lap again. "No, they did win, Britt. They just skipped straight to the end level. Like in that game Sam taught us with the big creature with the black helmet and the long red sword."

"Like a game?"

"Yeah, like snakes and ladders. Zizes and Finn and the others, they're all cheating and running up the snakes as well as the ladders." Santana says, smiling internally as Brittany's voice becomes clearer and less sad and croaky. "They're all at the finish line waiting for us, you know? So we have to take the long way round to make sure no one gets accused of cheating."

Brittany hums and nods against her shoulder. "We're going to win for them, right?"

"We're already winning." Santana agrees and feels the breeze pick up as Brittany nuzzles deeper beneath Santana's chin, eyelashes fluttering against her neck.

:;:;

Santana tiptoes up behind Rachel and when she's a few steps away she coughs loudly and watches as Berry jumps a little at the noise and then swings her legs round from the edge and stands up. The others aren't back, but Santana knows Puck doesn't want to stay another day, that he'll want to set off before it gets too dark.

"You ready, Berry?" She asks, checking behind her where Brittany is playing with grass blades down at the hill. She feels for her gun on instinct in case anything sudden happens. "They'll be back anytime soon and then we'll need to go. So, not including your height and the mountain hanging between your eyes, you got any problems?"

Rachel shifts on her feet, looks behind her at the great big drop and bites her lip on turning back around. "I don't think I'm coming, actually." She says, voice hesitant and scared.

Santana frowns and then immediately raises her eyebrows. "You what?"

There's a deadly silence that settles between them and Santana wants to itch at the awkwardness or just shake some answers out of Berry, so they can talk about it. But there's something wrong with the way her feet shift off the ground and hit the soil again and again. There's something wrong with the way Rachel's eyes flinch whenever Santana looks behind her at the world below them. Something's terribly wrong and Santana only just realizes the space, or lack of, between Rachel and the crumbling earth collapsing behind her.

"Rachel, what are you doing?" She swallows, eyes wide and head shaking rapidly as her hand reaches out in a plea. "Shall we-" Santana opens her mouth, closes it, and opens it again. "Will you just come check the bags with me or something? Just, like," she shrugs, tries to make it seem like her head isn't running with wild conclusions. "Rachel-"

"Do you remember Coach Sylvester?" Rachel asks, watches Santana blink back, and she doesn't even wait for an answer. Because they all think back to the lives they wish they'd kept back in High School. "Do you, do you remember when her sister died? When we did that funeral and the song and the-"

"Rachel." Santana says, voice barely audible. "Come on."

"And she did this speech." Berry carries on, swallowing and nodding to herself. Her nostrils are flared and it looks like she's fighting back tears or just a complete breakdown. "Coach Sylvester did. She did this beautiful speech about how there's this tether that connects you to the people you love most in the world, right? About how without them, there's just nothing, like you could pull and there's just no one on the other side."

Santana runs her hand across her forehead. Because she knows what's coming next, she's seen the way Rachel's been eyeing up the fall and the cliff and the end. She's noticed how all Rachel does is cry; her words have been eaten up with tears and sobs. "Finn wouldn't want this." She says, shaking her head. "He'd want you to carry on-"

"And even Sue Sylvester said she couldn't carry on, you know?" Rachel kind of smiles but it looks desperate and ugly. "I mean, the strongest lady I ever knew. The devil herself said she'd end it all if there was nothing keeping her here, if there wasn't hope. And back then it was all fine, you know? The world was normal then, Santana." She breathes out, waves her hand around, to the lonely City around them. "Finn's gone and my tether's broken." Rachel shrugs. "There's nothing for me to hold onto. Because yesterday showed it, when Artie died. I mean, it showed that we're not going to last."

"Goddamn it, Berry."

"Santana, I can't go with you." Rachel sniffs. "I heard you talking, down there." She nods her head to where Santana thinks Brittany is probably sitting down the hill. She can't turn to look because she can't let Rachel give up, like she seems to be insinuating. "You could be right. Maybe Finn is just waiting up there. Maybe I should just take the shortcut and cheat my way up. Because, Finn-"

"He's a boy, Rachel." Santana says, prays Berry will actually listen to someone else for a change. "Finn is just another stupid boy. And, I mean, the divorce rate was fucking skyrocketing before all this. People fall in and out of love all the time. Finn won't be the only one, there'll be others."

Rachel nods, bites her lip harder. "Is that what you think about Brittany, then?"

Santana sighs, looks to the floor and then back up, searching Rachel's face for some way out of this. For some excuse she could use that would bring this whole thing to an end, so they can all set off to find their safety and happiness behind the barriers of Ohio. "Rachel, you're the strongest person I've ever met. You don't give up. This isn't you."

Rachel looks to the sky and wipes the tears starting to pad down her cheeks and even Santana wants cry, to scream, to run forward and pull her back without tripping them both over the edge. "It's a mask though, Santana." She says, rubs her palms into the dents of her eye like a little child in the middle of a tantrum. She breathes out a laugh that sounds a little like giving up. Santana winces. "And why do you care anyway? You hate me."

Santana closes her eyes, prays to the God she stopped believing in and started hating a long time ago. When she opens her eyes Rachel seems further away, closer to the end. "It's a mask." She says, shrugs and stretches her hand out a little longer.

"Us two agreeing on something?" Rachel says in false shock, raising her eyebrows in a weak attempt of emotion. "Well, the world must be ending." She laughs and then creases her eyes to stop the tears bubbling fully over here eyes until they're both in splurges of doubt and they're both swimming away from this.

They both stare at each other until Santana steps forward and wiggles her clammy fingers with more determination. "Please." She begs, looking from her hand to Rachel's defeated eyes. "Just take my-"

"I've been thinking." Rachel says, looks behind her and ignoring whatever Santana was trying to plead. "Falling," she strains her arm round to point to the edge behind her. "Do you think it'll be like flying? Or, like, going home or something?" Santana doesn't reply, shakes her head and rubs at her eyes instead. And Rachel just smiles and nods to herself, like she wasn't really expecting an answer in the first place. "I suppose it doesn't really matter anyway."

"Rachel-" Her voice cracks and Rachel just shakes her head sadly.

"I'm sorry." She whispers before stepping back and stretching her arms out wide, like she has wings with no sun to shine down on and no wind to sweep her up. Santana shakes her head, runs forward as Rachel falls back and her body descends down. But before she can get far there are two sets of arms pulling at her stomach and holding her back as she screams into the space that was occupied only seconds ago by a flailing girl wanting to be loved.

Santana's thrown backwards before she can rip or peel away the fingers stopping her from falling afterward, from reaching a hand out and trying to catch Rachel as she already dances through the air to the bottom where the love of her life waits in ashes blowing her to safety.

:;:;


	4. Part Four

:;:;

Quinn and Puck let her go after she's promised not to do anything stupid and the weight of their arms releasing her chest almost makes her topple over without the support of standing up. Santana has to take three long, heavy breaths before pushing them both away and running her fingers through her hair to calm herself down.

Brittany's standing in the background looking over with wide eyes and a mouth set in a thin line. She thinks back to the moment she pushed a bullet through Zizes head, felt Puck deflate beside her and watched Lauren's head splatter to the ground as her body swam with a ripple from the air dragged through her ribs. Santana remembers dropping a match and telling herself along with the empty road in the lonely world that she'd stopped caring about everything and anything.

And maybe Santana should have kept that determination close to her chest and not given in at the first sign of blood. At the first droplet creasing from burnt eyes. Maybe Santana should have wished for that feeling from the very start, because now that she's losing people on a daily basis, she could really do with the talent to brush it all off and care more about whether her hair will go bushy in the rain.

But she pulls out her gun anyway, declares that they're all leaving, and waltzes away from the mess she's sure to dream about the next time her eyes become heavy and her head dances with delusion.

:;:;

"Rachel's dead." Kurt whispers behind her as they make a path through dead bodies on a street so catastrophic Santana almost feels like they're intruding on some party they were never invited too. He's fidgeting with the bat in his fingers and his eyes are misty with clouds of rain. "Rachel died."

Santana sniffs and pretends she's not listening, pretends she doesn't have the urge to push Kurt down into the dumps of the others and press the trigger against his pretty little temple. Because she knows. She knows Rachel is dead, she knows they're all next and she knows they've lost more people than they have rescued. But she closes her eyes and plays her finger over the trigger and points it down to her foot, wondering when she'll accidentally press too hard and bleed out from a wound inflicted upon herself.

"At least she's with Finn now, though." Kurt justifies, nodding his head to himself. And Santana is getting so fed up with listening to his fucked up theories that she contemplates turning around and walking with Puck or Quinn or Brittany.

Santana doesn't believe death is some kind of godsend, the kind Kurt likes to singsong about, the kind she she whispers into Brittany's ear. If there was a chance that she'd be transported to a magical place with golden gates and a welcome sign to heaven, then she'd have ended it a long time ago, pulled her gun on everyone in the choir room and told them to save her a seat. Because this place is hell and she'd do anything to be in heaven. But this is all they have, and it's hell or nothing.

"The others are waiting for us up there too, you know?" He smiles, turning to Santana as his thumb presses down on the edge of the bat, it's turning white with force. Santana doesn't smile back at him, just frowns and tries not to make the shake of her head too obvious. "Your parents will be waiting for-"

"No one's waiting." She says, stern and unapologetic. "It's all just a fantasy. No one is waiting."

Dreaming means that it leaves them one-step away from reality and it's further than Santana will let any of the others go, let alone herself. Death is waiting around each corner, and with Kurt actually looking forward to meeting his end, it sets a twist deep in her chest that wrings out any remaining hope dwelling in the cracks.

:;:;

When the world gets dark, Puck refuses to stop or take a break. They carry on because he insists they're close and he knows the way to the edge of Ohio. He tells them stories as they walk, about when his father was still with him and he used to take him and his sister out on road trips to the fields not far from Lima, and they used to set up camp and watch the sun disappear behind buildings so high their only aim was to touch the stars.

Quinn cries when they pass a church burnt down into rubble. She sings a hymn and brushes hair from Brittany's eyes when she tries to hum along with a dodgy tune. Santana smiles at Quinn and tugs at her hand, because maybe it all just signals the end of something. The end of the faith that was bubbling through Quinn's every belief, the end of her father's morals that were burnt into her veins as soon as she could talk. Maybe Quinn's only just realized no one is coming, that the Gods and Saints decided the test went too far a long time ago and forgot how to turn the game off.

:;:;

The graveyard is full of empty holes and pried open coffins with cracked gravestones weltering at the head of each pit. (They only find out because Brittany nearly falls into one of the voids and Santana gets so scared she'd lost the most important person left alive she'd had to take five minutes alone as to not collapse on the spot.)

The zombies are getting desperate and it looks like they've dug up dead bodies just to peel skin that isn't crumbling from the bones and suck the blood that isn't poisoned with a disease purring from their tongues.

Brittany's squeezing Santana's fingers so hard she can feel her muscles pumping with a pulse faltering every time Brittany's thumb smooths over her knuckles. "We should visit Artie's grave." Brittany whispers so close to Santana's ear she can feel the breath passing over her lobe. "And Mike's, and Tina's, and Mercedes'-"

"Britt, you have to actually bury them here for them to have a tombstone." Santana says, squeezing her fingers against Brittany's palm. Kurt screams in front and starts moaning about seeing a hand creep up from the mud, like a proper zombie in all the cheap-budget movies Finn probably suggested for the Hummel-Hudson movie night.

Santana turns in time to see Brittany frown and start to shake her head, looking around curiously at all the sabotaged memorials. "No." She replies, her voice hesitating on saying more. "But then, where are their bodies now? This is where they all go. Because mom always made us come and see Uncle Jimmy here."

"Their bodies are where they fell." Santana says.

(Rachel's arms flash in her head, swinging out as her smile falters for a second and her feet hover at the edge; Finn's teeth shine in the reflection of the moon as she shoots a bullet through his head; the flame tearing everything apart as it sets a trail along Sam's skin, Zizes' scars, the car she tripped past in the school parking lot with something Santana never would have guessed lying behind the windows; Tina and Mike lying in the choir room, stretched across the floor in threads and tethers; Artie's eyes hidden behind a steamed set of broken glass and Blaine flying back with a bullet.)

Brittany sniffs beside her and Santana whips her head around and jolts the images back into the nightmare file impaled in her brain. "So, when I die," Brittany starts and Santana opens her mouth to protest but Brittany carries on before a squeak can inch out. "Does that mean I won't get a box for myself? Like to go in the ground and stuff?"

"You're not going to die." Santana says, nodding to herself and pushing their palms closer together until it's almost painful. "Britt, you can't die, okay? Because we're best friends and we do everything together. And I'm not about to take my red carpet to heaven yet, understand?"

Brittany smiles and nods, and there's hope in her eyes. A sparkle that trusts every word dripping from Santana's mouth and into her ear. And Santana knows, together, with their hands locked and pinkies flushed side by side, that they'll make it out of all this and find the happiness she promised Brittany back in third grade.

:;:;

Kurt falls asleep when they stop for a breather. He sits down and when Santana tells him to open his eyes because his little nap is taking forever, he grumbles and rolls over. Quinn promises to keep guard because Puck hasn't slept for days and Brittany's already curling into Santana's lap. She stays awake with Quinn, because Santana (though she likes to argue on the contrary and she denies it whenever someone makes a sappy remark) has a big heart, and Quinn Fabray holds a giant part of it in her fist and if she were to lose another friend, Santana wouldn't recover.

"I miss love." Quinn whispers when the quiet becomes overwhelming. Santana frowns and turns to look at her but Quinn just shakes her head and continues. "We just hate and fight and wait nowadays. I miss being dumb and naive and," she shakes her head, "whatever. I miss feeling like love was the most important thing."

Santana purses her lips. "Love is overrated."

"The first time I knew I was in love," Quinn says, biting her lip and smiling up to the moon as the sky slowly begins to wash away the dirt so they can all start anew. Santana misses a time when there'd be birds chirping the welcome of the sun and singing farewell to the stars. "Was in freshman year." She finishes, laughing at her herself. "Finn hid flowers in my lockers and told me his dad would have loved me."

Santana turns and smiles. "Cute." She whistles, hands twisting blond strands as Brittany's head shuffles against her thighs. "Whoever knew you where doing the dirty with his favorite bro, hoe?"

Quinn scowls, shaking her head and looking disgusted. She fiddles with the racket in front, picking at the stained wood and hissing at splinters. "It was once, and it was a mistake." She turns to Santana and shrugs. "We were in love, somewhere between it all."

"Then Berry took over." Santana says, and she feels all kinds of gross talking about the dead without adding in slurred comments of fondness. She doesn't think any of them would want it anyway; Santana was never particularly heroic to them. "Whatever, it was all sweet while it lasted."

"What about you?" Quinn asks, staring at Santana's fingers drawing lines across Brittany's scalp. She turns to look at Quinn with a slight frown. "I mean, when was the first time you knew you were in love?"

Santana gulps and looks away. (She remembers waking up to Brittany's arms draped over her waist; hiding behind the bleachers with their mouths racing past lips; watching Brittany's long legs dance beside Mike and linking pinkies in the hallways. She remembers crying beside the lockers and running away with writhing dignity and burnt pride and a heart so fractured it hadn't even been mended when Brittany had stopped by with glue and plasters.)

"When she walked away with Artie and-" Santana stops, swallows a lump in her throat and coughs away everything she's been thinking. Quinn looks at her with soft eyes and an encouraging smile, and Santana just wants to slap it all away and reject any kind of acceptance or understanding, because Santana and Brittany are different from everyone. "I don't know." She shrugs instead of finishing her sentence that was about to delve too deep into her hidden emotions. "Time speeds away, people change, fuck each other up and whatnot. Who really knows what love is anyway?"

"Quit the bullshit, Santana." Quinn rolls her eyes and looks back down to the racket in her hands. Santana pulls her arm away from Brittany's head and shakes it in the cool air to rid the burning. "We all fucking know." She says, looking to the side and at Brittany turning over to press her forehead into Santana's stomach, she holds her breath. "She knows you-"

"Well you all just suck at life then, don't you?" Santana cuts in, closing her eyes against the beating of her pulse as Brittany's breath blows through her shirt and prickles her scarred skin. "Because you fucked every guy walking, and she," Santana thrusts her eyes open and shoots them down to the girl against her lap. "She fucked Cripples, Nipples and Trouty McGuppyPants all in record time so…" She trails off, shrugging into the mist settling around them.

"She would've stopped." Quinn whispers, turning to face Santana. "She'd have stopped if you asked, you know that." Santana doesn't reply and Quinn just rolls her eyes. "Whatever, you went out and killed those creatures and we stayed in and fucked. It all meant nothing and at the end of the day we weren't all hating on each other. It was a stress relief and Brittany-"

"I don't care." Santana interrupts with a raised voice, throwing her hands in the air in mock surrender and widening her eyes for emphasis. "Okay. I don't actually give a shit. She did it, you did it, everyone did it. So fucking what?"

Quinn raises her eyebrows and goes back to rubbing at the stained racket with her own bloody fingers. Santana sighs and looks back down to Brittany still clogged in the dreams they used to whisper about under tents made from blankets and pegs and poles. Santana doesn't think she's dreamt for years.

:;:;

When Santana wakes up she wishes she'd never closed her eyes. Brittany's crying beside her and Puck's screaming incoherent rants into the space they violated with hope and whispers of love and a time when people thought it was the most daunting and yet exhilarating thing. Quinn's on her feet with trembling fingers clutching the rips in her pants.

Santana gasps when she stands up because it's not even possible how bad their luck can get, it's not even fair they get the frontal force of torture just because everyone else isn't around to feel the pain inflicted. Kurt blinks tears down his cheeks and the gun is shaking shapes across his temple as his hands tremble past the trigger. Santana remembers thinking of hell, thinking of here.

"I dreamt about him." Kurt says, voice still swooning with tune even as he threatens his life away. Tears tremble past his lashes and dance down his cheek like this is all just a choreographed scene with beauty intrinsically drowning everything. "Or, whatever it was, because he said this was a dream-"

"Kurt." Santana whispers, stepping up and forward, trying not to run her palm past her eyes to wake her up or show how they're brimming with droplets hanging from the edge. "I know we all desperately want food and drink and rest, and a fuck load of people we love. But this has got to stop."

"If I close my eyes." Kurt mutters, pressing them shut and pushing the mouth of the gun deeper into his temple, swaying from the feeling. Santana wants to be sick, because she's watched too many people die in front of her. She remembers Rachel giving up, Mike giving up and now Kurt's sniffing against a bullet too. "See, now I can see him." He says, smiling slightly.

"Kurt, come on." Puck shakes his head, feet shuffling against the mud and closer to the gun, but Kurt's eyes open and he steps further away. "Look, Blaine was a cool guy and you two were all," he breathes in, frowning to himself. "You know, and he wouldn't want this now, would he?"

"But he said he did." Kurt replies, eyebrows raised in challenge.

"No." Santana says, stepping forward with her hands outstretched. "No, you're imagination did."

Kurt opens his lips but stops at a loud noise in the background and his mouth drops open and eyelids squeeze shut. When Santana swivels around she sees a crowd of monsters not far off with their heads tilted to the side and a sick smile plastered across their cheeks, noses pushing forward. She swallows again and nearly screams.

"Kurt, put that fucking gun down and come on." She shouts, running forward and pushing Kurt back, but his grip is tight against the gun and his hand doesn't even jolt back with the thrust. Kurt's eyes don't even open and Brittany's starting to cry harder and Puck's picking up a bat as Quinn's pupils flick back and forth between the zombies and Kurt. (Both are as good as gone in this life.)

"I can see him." Kurt whispers, the edge of his smile tugging up. And Santana waves Puck on, tries to get him to run and take Quinn and Brittany with him as she sorts this mess out. But Kurt looks like he's in paradise and the happy expression crossing his face hasn't made an appearance on any of them for months now, and Santana almost leaves him just because it's a place they all want.

"Go." Santana all but screams at Puck, repeating it louder and louder until he takes Brittany's hand and pulls at Quinn's wrist and starts to jog away, looking back with concern. And then she turns back to the boy that lost himself so long ago in a world with Warblers and royalty and a best friend that hasn't burnt away in a car. The rubber wheels and metal doors rot next to a place with a crown that once rested along his head as he took a slow dance with a prince. "Kurt?"

"I can see him." He repeats, voice slower and softer. Santana can hear the footsteps coming closer behind her and Brittany's figure is starting to disappear in the distance. "And he's telling me to do this. He's telling me that he's where I belong. We all belong up there with them."

"It's a dream." She tries, throwing a look behind her and searching back with a panicked pulse and sweaty palms. "God, Kurt, it's a stupid dream and we'll both die if you stay here. We'll both die if we don't go now."

"Go." He says, eyes still pressed shut.

"I can't lose someone else." She whispers and has to drag a finger beneath her eyes. She picks up moisture and she'd be angry with herself for letting it get this far if Kurt wasn't still smiling with the metal pushing so hard to his head, it's pushing the survival they fought to keep out to surrender and give up. "Don't make me lose her." She breathes out, voice hitching. "If we don't go now, I won't see her ever again and I just can't-"

"And if I don't do this," he mumbles, finger pressing further down on the trigger. "I won't see him again."

"Kurt-"

"We'll all be waiting, Santana." He whispers and takes one step away before she hears the shattering of bones, the silence ringing in her ears and she stands in complete nothingness until her legs begin to wobble and breath tickles her neck, claws scratch her skin and her feet are taking off away from the monsters devouring the dead body of Kurt Hummel.

:;:;

As soon as they slam the door shut in an abandoned warehouse, Santana collapses to the floor and Brittany drops with her and pulls her into a hug. Quinn has to walk away, sniffing and shaking whilst Puck starts letting it all out on the wooden crates in the far corner as he swings his bat to demolish everything in his path.

"I didn't do it." Santana whispers, trembling in Brittany's arms. She can hear the bullet, can see Kurt's head jolt back and the whole of his body drop to the floor as his life is snatched away. "He died, and I didn't- I thought I could save him, but I didn't-" She's stuttering against Brittany's shoulder and Santana can feel the blood sticking to her chest. (It's probably not even hers; Kurt's eyes had cut open a millisecond after the shot, he must have felt the pain as everything exploded.)

Brittany shushes her, runs fingers through her hair and presses kisses against her forehead. Santana can't even feel her lips. She's not sure if she hears Puck smashing everything to smithereens, if she hears Quinn sobbing against the walls, if she hears Kurt whisper a farewell or if everything's gone quiet but Brittany's words.

It feels like (today, tomorrow, the world waiting outside the barrier and the life she left behind) that maybe Brittany won't be enough to stop her breaking into pieces against the stone floor after all. And when she feels Brittany's lips murmur about love, Santana's never felt less relieved to be getting everything she ever wanted.

:;:;

Puck nearly knocks himself out as the nails from the wood fly out into his face, but he's dealt with worse, and he ends up lying in the wood and exhausting himself into sleep. Quinn raids the bags for the last remaining candy bars and then nuzzles up to Noah until they both rock themselves into such a slumber Santana just watches them breath in and out.

"Puck said we're close." Santana says when Brittany steps up behind her to watch the scene below them, her fingers curling around Santana's. "Maybe it'll only take tomorrow."

"Then we can be happy." Brittany nods. "Can't we, Santana?"

Santana swallows a lump at the word. She's not even sure she gets what it means anymore, but Brittany's head is leaning against her shoulder and there's a warm fire flickering in her chest where her heart is stabilizing. (When she was younger she'd dance around with her dad's special doctor equipment, pressing the cold stethoscope against his chest and pretending to hear nothing.)

"Yeah." She nods, squeezing her fingers and resting her head on top of Brittany's.

Brittany hums a little bit and Santana wishes she could forget that there's a world shriveling away outside of the warehouse, that there are creatures hell-bent on making them a meal. "Can we be the happy we want?"

"When we're safe, we can be as happy as you want."

"No." She shakes her head and Santana feels it against her shoulder. "I mean, can we be together like we want? Like that kind of happy."

Santana closes her eyes and feels herself nod before she even knows what the answer should be to the question. "Britt, like I said," she says, pulling away and stretching her fingers apart to separate their palms. "You can be as-"

"Santana." Brittany whispers, curling her fingers around Santana's wrist before she can step away. Santana gulps and shuffles her feet, refusing to make eye contact. Because she can't do this right now. She can't talk about how Brittany is the most important person in the world when her heart aches for the people that gave up way too easily. (And she thinks about the people that did it for love. Santana can almost accept it for the brave move it is. Because losing Quinn would hurt, but losing Brittany would be unbearable.)

"Brittany, I can't do this right now." She shakes her head, trying to pull her arm back but Brittany just steps forward, swallowing a lump and staring across with stubborn eyes.

"Santana." She says, firmer and harsher as she takes another step until their knees bruise past. Santana closes her eyes and tries to think of a million different excuses as to why happiness should be subjective or spruce up some stinging snipe about how, in turn, they broke each other's heart and shouldn't be dwelling on feelings whilst the world crumbles around them. "I love you more than anyone in the world."

Santana bites her lip and holds her tongue at any comment that soothes past her gums about how there's no one left in the world. Because she remembers the first time she heard those words, when she was trying to paint her nails on a rainy day in a universe much different to the one they spin in nowadays. "I know." Santana manages to husk out.

"So, we'll be together." Brittany replies, and Santana's not sure whether it's meant to be a question or a statement so she just nods along and pulls away to keep a lookout at the door. Her footsteps ring out and echo along the walls in the warehouse and she files Brittany's words away as another fact of life still to be proven. (Because she's been waiting a long time for it to come true.)

:;:;

"It's not just a barrier." Puck whispers as he dusts himself off and picks up the wood splintered around the floor. Quinn coughs through the cold air in the warehouse and hoists a backpack over her shoulders. The sun's smiling outside and Santana almost wants to celebrate the end they're nearing. "It's a fucking cage."

:;:;

When they first see the wall separating Lima from the rest of the world, all four of them stop in a line to breathe it all in. Santana forgets about the blood smeared down the crinkles in her clothes, she forgets about the bodies they tripped past in order to find their way and she forgets about the scars running wild across her skin and the bruises painting splotches all around her body like a child's coloring book. But she doesn't forget the pinkie hanging from her own.

"We made it." Puck whistles, scuffing his feet against the gravel and slinging his arm over Quinn's shoulder with a smile that hovers if only for a second before looking genuine. "We fucking made it."

Brittany breathes out a light laugh and the moment almost catches her off guard, almost throws her the few miles left between what they all believe to be safety and happiness and home. But if Santana has learnt anything from the likes of Rachel Berry and Kurt Hummel, it's that nothing comes easy and without last minute drama.

And when she turns to observe the tangles they're walking away from, her heart takes a beating. There's a whole army of creatures lining up down the road, snarling, sniffing, sneering, and she tries not to act surprised. They've led them right to the money, right to the blood bank and butchers. Her stomach drops and Santana considers turning back around and just walking them all on, waiting for the creatures to jump from behind and end it whilst they still have hope and happiness running through their veins.

But it's not how stories go. The survivors never get this far only to give up at the very last minute. She should have guessed the finale wouldn't be so easy. She should have listened to Berry and Hummel sprout tales from the theatre of the final song being the biggest. She should have taken notice of Sam and his comic books on how the last fight is always the worst. Because Finn used to play console games and he always silenced them all at the final level.

And when Puck turns around, he knows he's missed something along the way.

:;:;

Her first instinct is to run. She hasn't made up her mind whether it's into the fire or away. And neither party moves, waiting on further instructions or a better idea, maybe they're just taking their cues from each other and they'll stay in this standoff forever. Brittany's fingers turn to stone and Santana can hardy hold on anymore without wanting to throw her far away from this mess.

"Go." Puck says, out of the blue and clueless. Santana jolts at the sound and doesn't really make sense of the word until Puck's crossing his arms and turning to face them all. Quinn's already shaking her head and her mouth is flying open. "No, don't do that." He orders before anyone can make a noise and Quinn shuts her mouth immediately. "I'm telling you all to go. I can fight this battle while you all get to the-"

"No." Santana replies with a strong voice, and she doesn't plan on budging. Brittany's grasp tightens and it wouldn't surprise Santana if she didn't have a clue about what any of this even means. "Get to fuck, Puckerman." Santana says louder, pulling out her gun and looking straight down the street. "Like your fat ass would make any difference to them anyway."

Puck lets out a breathy laugh and shakes his head. "Santana, you know just as well as I do that we're fucked." He points his bat down the road at the crowd gathering just to be near to fresh flesh, just to smell it. Santana tries not to be sick just at the look of them, because she's seen limbs splattered around walls before and eyes bludgeoned from their sockets. In comparison, the flaky skin and dark eyes don't seem that gruesome.

Santana shrugs and turns back to where Puck's whispering something to Quinn next to him and she almost has the urge to shove Brittany just to create a domino effect and smack Puck at the end. "Well, at least we're fucked together-"

"I can give you time." He interrupts, standing straight and tall as he starts pounding the bat against his left palm. "I'll hold them off whilst you run and-"

"Don't be fucking stupid." Santana spits, pulling her arm away from Brittany to cock her gun. "Let's get this over and done with-"

"I'm sorry, Santana." Puck whispers, stepping forward and away from them. "We didn't come this far to all be battered in this fight together, did we?" He turns around, tries to smile and signals Quinn with a weird nod of his head and all of a sudden Santana's being pulled back with a strong arm against her stomach, and he just watches with sadness clouding his eyes. "I can't let us all lose the battle."

"You put me the fuck down, Fabray." Santana's screaming, shaking her head and trying to get some friction across the gravel as her shoes drag down the road. And she'd probably be able to beat Quinn if it wasn't for the wound in her chest killing her strength and making her cringe away. Brittany's stepping back from it all, a frown of confusion plastering her face until Puck orders her to leave too, and she hobbles along behind them.

Puck swallows, stepping further away. "Santana-"

"Don't you fucking try it, Noah." She shouts as her fingers go to pry Quinn off. "Why are you doing this?" Santana asks with more vulnerability than she fears she's ever shown in front of Puck, Quinn doesn't let go and carries on pulling her away from the scene. "You're the leader, Puck. We can't go on without you."

Puck shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders. "No, babe." He mutters, feet stumbling behind him and getting closer to the war he wants to fight alone. "You've always been the leader."

"Don't do this." She pleads, eyes stinging and stomach flipping.

And before she can protest or yell her fury, Quinn's forcing Brittany to help pull Santana away too, and Puck's jogging off into the distance with only a bat at hand to protect him from the evil no one ever knew could exist.

:;:;

As soon as Quinn puts her down and instructs Brittany to do the same, Santana throws a slap right into Fabray's cheek and watches her head fly back and a wince ride through her features. Brittany pulls Santana's hands back immediately and whispers something about stopping or whatever, but Santana's etching forward to Quinn.

"Don't ever do that again, you hear?" She screams, pushing Quinn's shoulders away and Brittany makes a leap to restrain her arms again, but Santana's furious and she won't let herself be caught up and dragged away from another scene that's so inevitable it hurts that they didn't see it coming. "I'm going back." She declares, pulling her gun out and shrugging away any fingers Brittany has left trailing after her.

"He just wants us to be safe." Quinn whispers, and then says it again louder until Santana's turned around with her eyebrows hitting the sky. "Dress it up however you like, Santana, but if we go back there we're as good as dead. Puck gave us time, and if we want to respect that, then we need to move our asses now."

"No." Santana spits, walking forward and flexing her hands around her gun until it's pressing right into her thigh. "We don't needs to do anything. 'Cause what I'm going to do?" She shrugs to herself, because she doesn't really have a choice. None of them ever really had a choice. "Is go back there and save him."

"He wants this, Santana." Quinn shouts, looking briefly at Brittany standing in between them and twiddling her thumbs in a panic, and then turning back to glare at Santana with painful urgency. And Santana gets that this is all just about fear. "Puck wants us to be safe-"

"He wants to be safe." She screams back and watches Quinn recoil away and cringe. "You really think this is what Noah Puckerman wants? He just wants to be a fucking hero, die in battle like the rest of them. He just wants them," she thrusts her hand up in the air, pointing to the sky above, where the sun is having trouble fighting off the grumbles the clouds are shooting. "He just wants to make them proud."

Quinn looks to the floor and shakes her head, sniffing. Brittany's eyes widen as Santana takes a step away and she runs forward to pull her back. "Santana-" She squeaks, eyes frantically searching to read her face. "Please don't leave us."

Santana closes her eyes and breathes a shaky sigh. "Let go, Britt."

"I can't."

"I'll be right back." Santana tries, biting her lip and sending a quick glance at Quinn, still studying the gravel.

"But why can't we have our happy ending?" She whispers, grip tightening against Santana's wrist. Santana tries not to look guilty and keeps her eyes trained on Brittany's lips, trembling against her jaw. "I thought you said-"

"We will, Brittany." Santana nods, stepping forward so they're toe to toe. Brittany takes her free hand to rub at her cheek and below her eyes and then to reach out and do the same for Santana, even though she's pretty sure there are no tears rolling behind her lids. "But we can have it with Puck as well."

"Santana-"

"I'm right behind you." She says, pulling away and pressing her fingers tightly together against her forehead. Brittany gets it straight away, copying her. "You're my bird." Santana whispers, shooting her arm away and watching Brittany send the salute back. Quinn offers the bat she's playing with in her fingers and Santana doesn't take her eyes off Brittany as she reaches for it. And before she can change her mind, she lets her feet take her away.

:;:;

The first thing she's aware of, when she gets close enough to the battleground to see what is actually happening, is the slap to her face and the claws making paths down her back. She swings around, angry that she hadn't noticed the group so obviously waiting for her nearer the end of the path, and wallops them with the bat awkwardly placed in the wrong palm.

Puck looks back at the noise and his eyes go wide for a second before he turns back and kicks a monster right in the belly before lurching forward and flooring another, kicking his feet out to an additional creature on his left. Santana ducks a bite and shoots a bullet through one of their heads and runs forward to the infected hoard going crazy by Puck.

They don't speak, but there's a silent understanding of unity and Santana resist the urge to help Puck scramble to his feet. She elbows another zombie and shoots her bullet in the direction of the crowd and watches as three of them fall back and cause others to trip along the way, fights escalate between the monsters, destroying themselves in the process. She throws her bat in a circle and kicks her leg out and manages to push forward more and into another circle of creatures, all trying to cop a bite.

Puck slides up behind her, shooting off two bullets in front of her as he runs through a pile of others and somehow manages to leave them all smashing to the ground with one swing of his stained bat. Santana cocks her gun, pushing out bullets by the second in every angle she can get, missing Puck's area out and watching from the corner of her eye as his arm is almost clawed off and his gun falls to the ground and skids through manic legs.

His hand dangles on threads and the zombies around him cry with anticipation as they all lunge to chew it off completely. Santana pulls through, smacking five faces with a spin and shaking her head to blink away the blood splattered in her face. When one of the creatures rams forward and shoves others out from the crowd and onto the floor to scrap with the dying drowning in the rush against the gravel, he runs his head straight into Santana's stomach and she flies back into another pile of monsters snarling around her back.

The slash in her chest opens up again and blood is instantly soaking her chest and running paths into waiting tongues. Puck flies through, kicking away eager mouths and frosted skin already flaking through the air. She elbows around her and tugs tightly at her gun, pulling the trigger all around her until an arm is dragging her away and out of the crowd as she rocks out of consciousness and her fingers tremble with blood flowing from her stomach.

:;:;

They're all in the choir room, waiting on plastic chairs with their eyebrows raised and mouths in a half-smirk. Rachel is giggling into Finn's shoulder and when she spies Santana shaking by the door with blood flooding from beneath her shirt she huffs a sigh and straightens up, crossing her arms over her chest. Finn just smiles hesitantly and winces at the blood like the humongous wimp he always was.

She breathes out a shaky breath and can't seem to take in another. Her legs wobble and Mercedes is standing up and holding her arm upright, Kurt is by the piano with Blaine, whispering something about breathing and waiting. Sam's on her other side, stroking her elbows and all of a sudden Tina is wiping away the blood running down her cheeks mixing with salty tears. She doesn't say anything, but thinks that maybe this is the magical place Kurt had been talking about.

Mike's spinning Artie around in his wheelchair and they're both swaying along to a tune Rachel's started to hum as she's standing and walking closer. Zizes rolls her eyes as she watches Santana sniff away tears. And it was never her place to show emotion. Santana and Zizes were the only one's that only opened their mouths to insult and Santana quickly shakes herself into the person she's programmed to be around these people.

Her stomach aches and as her legs collapse and her knees tumble to the floor (Sam and Mercedes aren't there to catch her anymore, they've let go and started to stare along with the others), Mr. Schuester comes sauntering into the room and raises an eyebrow at Santana's tears, and she falls back to the ground so she's lying down and Berry's song hums in her ear as voices join in and Mr. Schue is standing over her and rubbing her cheeks the way Tina was seconds before.

"Wake up, Santana."

:;:;

"Wake up, Santana."

She gasps and thrusts open her eyes simultaneously and shudders when she sees Brittany staring down at her. There's a pain in her chest and her vision starts to dance in front of her. Quinn's arms are still pulling at her shoulders as she pulls her further away from the mess and Puck stumbles in front, a gun facing in the direction of the war they just left.

"It's over." Brittany whispers when Quinn drops her back to the ground and hoists her into a sitting position against her lap. Brittany leans forward and presses their foreheads together. "We came back and did it, Santana. They're all gone."

Down the hill, they can still hear snarls float to the sky from the broken mouths of infected monsters jutting on the floor with bullets through their molded limbs and bruises on the outskirts of snapped bones. Santana can't see a single spot of tarmac, bodies line every inch and blood flows like a river of lava through hell, mocking them all.

Puck rips half of his pants off and hands it to Quinn to wrap around Santana's waist and it stings as she pulls a knot over the bleeding to calm the flow. Brittany holds her hand tightly as Puck and Quinn pull her up to stand and she wobbles before stumbling back against Brittany.

"Let's go." Puck says, wrapping his mutilated hand over his waist and Quinn tugs to hold his other arm. The walls are just ahead and Santana wants to cry, because they made it. Everything the world put them through, the shards threatening faulty pulses and scars speeding paths along skin and all the deaths they had to endure, they made it.

Brittany links their pinkies and whispers something about happiness and safety and being together forever.

And Santana nods along and hangs to Brittany's pinkie like it's the one thing holding her back in the world where she belongs, with the people she's meant to be with and the heart she's meant to share. And she can hear humming in the back of her head, drowned out by piano notes and deep laughing. She can hear shots in the distance and see arms flailing in the wind and matches falling from grace.

And maybe, Santana thinks as she opens her eyes and forgets about the memories dragging her down into the paradise waiting for them, pulling her into the nightmares from the path they've fleetingly crossed, maybe the walls marking the barrier seem too small to keep the secrets of survival. And maybe Brittany's pinkie still shivers against her own, fear still riveting them on.

But Puck's humming a song she heard a long time ago from a girl that used to rock in the corner. And Quinn's swaying along by his side and Brittany's leaning next to her and Santana doesn't know if this is the life they were meant to live. But she's got her people here, and she's got safety mere meters away.

It feels like enough.

:;:;

_Fin._


End file.
